


They're All Blood, You See

by bellatemple



Series: Hawk from a handsaw [2]
Category: Haven (TV)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Depression, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, Memory Loss, Sickfic, Time travel aftermath, missing time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2020-01-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:55:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 33,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22036660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellatemple/pseuds/bellatemple
Summary: Sequel to "And By Opposing End Them".  There really is no good way to alter a timeline, especially not in Haven.
Series: Hawk from a handsaw [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1586179
Comments: 90
Kudos: 32





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> “We're more of the love, blood, and rhetoric school. Well, we can do you blood and love without the rhetoric, and we can do you blood and rhetoric without the love, and we can do you all three concurrent or consecutive. But we can't give you love and rhetoric without the blood. Blood is compulsory. They're all blood, you see.”
> 
> ― Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard

"Here." 

Duke startled up from his slouch at the Gull's bar as Dwight tossed a thin manilla envelope down in front of him. He hadn't even noticed him coming in, which either meant Dwight was much stealthier than a guy his size had any right to be, or Duke needed to pay more attention to his surroundings. 

Dwight offered an apologetic shrug. "Duke — the, ah, other one — he left that for you." 

Duke picked the envelope up gingerly, as though whatever sickness had infected his future self, had flipped that inner mental switch from "survive" to "suicide", might still somewhow be lingering on the paper. The back said "Crocker", written in his own messy caps. 

"Thanks. I guess." 

"Hey." Dwight pressed both hands to the bar, looking from the mostly empty bottle to the scotch glass in Duke's other hand. "You okay?" 

Duke snorted, tossing back the rest of his drink. "I'm fine." 

"Really? Because watching a version of myself go all black-eyed and die would definitely mess with my head." 

It had. It _was_. Duke saw again in flashes: Jennifer's terror as she clutched at his arm, Dave's face twisted in furious glee. His own face staring Dave down, pale and strange and _wrong_. 

It occurred to him that he didn't even know what had happened to the body. Nathan had taken Audrey off and Dwight and Vince had taken charge. The police and the Guard, Duke's mortal enemies, had taken his body who knew where. And he couldn't feel anything but grateful. 

Scratch that. 

He couldn't feel _anything_. 

He reached for the bottle. Dwight put his hand around its neck, pressing it into the bar. Duke couldn't make it budge. 

"You and Jennifer stayed up there for awhile. Anything I need to know about?" 

"When there's something you need to know, 'Squatch, I'll tell you." Duke gave up on the bottle and wobbled his way to his feet. He felt — off. Half a second or more behind the rest of the world. He'd been feeling it since the seal tank in Boston; being drunk at least gave him an excuse for it. 

"You sure about that?" Dwight asked. Duke didn't answer, not wanting to let on how long it took him to connect that question to the rest of their conversation. He wasn't sure about anything, except that he wanted to go home. 

"Lock up on your way out," he said instead. "Or don't. I don't really care." 

"Don't forget your envelope." Dwight threw the thing at Duke like a frisbee, then shrugged off Duke's glare. "Could be important." 

"Doubt it." Duke picked the envelope up, shoving it carelessly under his arm. "His future's gone now, remember? He rewrote the whole thing." 

Dwight's expression was way too sympathetic for Duke's current level of belligerence. "He told me how to save my daughter, Duke. Gave us an idea of how to cure the troubles without anyone having to die. Who knows what he has to tell you." 

Duke gave him a smile that felt more like a sneer. "Someone had to die alright, Dwight." He turned to shove his way out the door. "And this is a long way from over."

*

Duke didn't speak to anyone else for two days.

He spent the time on the _Cape Rouge_ , not even out at sea, just docked quietly in the harbor. No one came to find him. 

He didn't know why he thought they would. 

He was tempted to spend the whole time at the bottom of a bottle, but after the first couple of glasses, all he could think of was the future Duke, his fist around the neck of a fifth of scotch, drinking it down like it was water. Just like his father had. Of that Duke calmly talking about killing Hailie Colton, a girl he'd known since she was in pigtails, just to take her trouble. Duke stared down at the envelope, sitting on the galley table next to his father's journal, and put the booze away. 

The end of the first day, he started packing up the boat, getting her ready to cast off. In the morning he plotted a course for the Caribbean, fully intending to leave port and never, ever look back — and noticed that his bilge pump was missing. Remembered loaning it to Jack a month ago, had to adjust it to seven months to account for the time he lost to the Barn. His missing months glared at him from every surface after that, in the way Wade had rearranged the pots and pans in the kitchen, in the outdated tide charts covered in dust in the wheelhouse. It made his stomach drop every time he noticed. A strange nausea lingered, a bad taste on the back of his tongue. His body rebelling against the lost time, the abrupt shift from late fall to early summer. Like jetlag in the extreme. Barn-lag. He wondered if Audrey felt the same way, or if it was even worse for her. She'd been an entirely different person in the Barn, had had her whole life rewritten again. He almost picked up his phone to call her and ask her. 

And then he didn't. 

He'd seen the way she and Nathan had clung to each other on that bluff, after they'd stumbled back out of the Void. There wasn't room for him there, whatever his future self had tried to say. And anyway, there was Jennifer to think about. Who the other Duke had looked at with such broken affection. Who had probably driven straight back to Boston the moment Duke had dropped her off again at her car. 

He was just thinking of getting out the liquor again, family history of alcoholism be damned, when he heard someone calling from the dock. He stepped out above decks, blinking into the evening sun and wondering where the day had gone. Jennifer waved from the top of the stairs to the docks, smiling awkwardly. 

"Do you know how hard it is to find one particular boat around here?" she asked. "Especially when you barely remember the name." 

"You could have just asked someone for 'Duke's boat'," Duke pointed out, shoving two solid days of moping aside to smile back. She'd come to see him. She'd _stayed_. 

"Aha!" She stuck a triumphant finger in the air. "I did think of that! Eventually." She shrugged, shuffling her feet at the top of his stairs. "Permission to come aboard? Or — whatever?" 

Duke's smile grew. "Granted. I don't think anyone's ever actually asked me that before." 

"Really?" Jennifer practically hopped down the first couple of stairs, stopping when she'd be just high enough to match him in height. "That makes sense, actually. No offense, but your friends are kind of . . . awful." 

Duke automatically opened his mouth to defend them, only to shake his head instead. "Sometimes," he admitted. "It's been a weird couple of — months. What are you doing here?" 

Jennifer backed up a step, biting her lip. "Oh. Um. I came to see you? If that's okay?" 

"It's fine," Duke assured her. "I just figured you'd be miles away by now. Back to your normal life." 

"You mean the one where I thought I was crazy?" She jumped down onto the deck, coming to stand right in front of him. They both had to crane their necks a little; she really was a tiny thing. "Noooo thank you. You opened an _actual portal_ to another world. Well, the other you did. Also, there was _another you_. I have so many questions. If I left now, I'd just be sitting around like a — big _ball of questions_." 

Ah. There it was. Duke backed up a step, his hands sliding into his pockets. She was here because she wanted something. Of course. "I'm afraid I don't really have a lot of answers for you." 

Jennifer pursed her lips at him, giving him a studying look. "That's not what I meant. Duke, you just _met your future self_ from another timeline. Aren't you full of questions too?" 

"Yeah, I guess." Duke rubbed the back of his neck, not sure how to tell her that he wasn't so much full of questions as regrets. "It kind of seems like all the answers are going to be terrible, though." 

Jennifer bounced her head side to side, giving him a little eye roll. "Okay fair. But once you have the answers, you can change them, right?" 

Duke looked away. That was what he'd been trying to help Audrey do, at least once he knew she wouldn't run away with him. The other Duke had given them hints, pointed them in what he at least thought was the right direction, even cleared a few hurdles by helping them get Audrey back out of the Barn. And he'd died in order to do it. To keep Duke from having to suffer the same way he had. He couldn't cop out now, could he? Not when they were this much closer to solving the troubles for good. 

"Come on inside," he said finally, gesturing to the hatch with his head. "There's something I think you'll want to see." 

Jennifer followed him below decks. "If it's an etching, I'm going to be really annoyed." 

Duke laughed. That was such an old-timer joke. "You know what? So will I." 

What he pulled out of the envelope wasn't an etching, fortunately. It was a list.

 _Don Keaton — incineration — survivor's guilt_  
_Mike Gallagher — killer blood — hatred_  
_Peter Krebs — death timer — frustration/impatience_

It went on like that for the rest of the page, names of people, what their troubles were, and what Duke guessed was the trouble's trigger. Jennifer stared over his shoulder, practically vibrating with tension. "Is — is that what I think it is?"

"No." Duke shoved the list back into the envelope, then shoved both away. "No, it's not." 

"That's a _kill list!_ " Jennifer hissed, backing off. 

" _No._ " Duke twisted around on the bench, holding out his hand to her. "No, he was very clear: killing people won't solve anything. It's just — it's a cheat sheet. It has to be. People whose troubles will be a problem soon, what those troubles are, and how they work." 

"So — so you can kill them. A-and absorb their powers." Jennifer had made it nearly to hall by the stateroom. "And now I've seen it, so you'll have to kill _me_ too —" 

Duke stood slowly, hands still out. "No. Even if that was what he wanted me to do, that's not what I'm _going_ to do. I swear, Jennifer. Remember?" He pressed his hand to his chest. "Heart of gold?" 

"Heart of gold," she said, not like she believed it, but maybe like she wanted to. "Okay. Fine then, Mr. Heart-of-Gold. What do you think he wanted you to do with it?" 

Duke looked down at the envelope again, reminding himself that _he'd_ written it. A strange, broken version of him, but him all the same. If he went back in time, what would he want to tell himself? Hell, when he'd gone back to the 50s, even knowing the rules, what had he wanted to tell his grandfather?

"They're warnings," he said. "The first guy on the list, incineration. We've seen that kind of thing before, it's ugly. It's not a list of people to _kill_ , it's a list of people to _help_." He ran his hands through his hair. "I'm just not sure why he left it with me. Audrey's the one who helps troubled people." And Roy knowing about Sarah — it'd been a self-fulfilling prophecy. The other Duke would have known about that too, right? Unless he'd forgotten about it. He'd never found out just when he'd come from. His hair had been going grey. Maybe it'd been years. "Dammit, cryptic's not even my style. Why wouldn't he just _tell_ me?"

"I mean." Jennifer had stopped retreating, her body hunched in the passageway like she was bracing for a fight. "I'm not sure when he could have. You two kind of barely even looked at each other." 

Duke suppressed a shudder, the image of his double, black-eyed and furious, slamming to the front of his mind again. He wondered if he'd ever be able to close his eyes again without seeing it. If he'd always half expect it when he looked in the mirror. "He was — he looked _wrong_. Like looking at a bad picture of myself, only times a thousand." 

Jennifer sat down across from him, perching on the edge of the bench. "Do you think it worked? That the changes he made will mean you won't have to . . . be him someday?" 

Roy, dying in his arms. Sarah, staring shocked over the barrel of the pistol. 

"I don't know," Duke said. "I hope so." 

They fell quiet for a long moment then, Jennifer biting her lip and looking askance, Duke trying not to think about all the damn ghosts haunting him, now featuring _himself_ as a lead player. Finally, Jennifer popped back to her feet. 

"I should go. It's late, and you have a lot to think about and I am _definitely_ intruding, so I'm just going to. " She gestured to the door. "Go. Yeah. Goodnight." 

"You don't have to." The words were out before Duke consciously recognized he was forming them. She'd come tonight, when he'd only just realized he really did need someone to care. She'd been doing it for days, showing up just where he needed her, whether in the hospital in Boston, in the Gull when he realized someone was in Audrey's apartment, on the bluff with the door only she could see. He wasn't used to that, people actually _showing up_. Not without half a dozen levels of ulterior motive, anyway. 

She was staring at him. He'd been quiet too long. Not a problem he usually had, but it'd been a strange few days. Several months. Whichever. 

"You could stay," he said. "If you want. I'd — I'd like it. If you stayed." 

She smiled, small and shy, twisting her hips with a weird combination of naivete and coyness. "Okay. Yeah. For a little while. If you want." 

Duke smiled back. "Thank you." 

"For staying?" 

For everything. "Yeah. it gets . . . lonely, sometimes." 

"Maybe because you're living on a boat? All your neighbors are fish." 

"I like fish." Duke shrugged. "Fish are quiet." 

"Quiet." Jennifer sat down again. "What's _that_ like?"

*

She stayed the rest of the night. All they did was talk, but it was still one of the best nights Duke had had in a long time.

Dwight arriving not long after dawn couldn't have been less welcome if he'd tried. 

"Duke," he greeted, his expression and stance closed, professional. He was there on business, which considering his new position in town, didn't bode well for Duke. 

"Chief 'Squatch," Duke said, an instinctive edge to his voice as he gave Dwight a wide, toothy smile. He'd always responded to cops with open antagonism, been at his most obnoxious when faced with authority. He couldn't help it, though it got him into trouble more often than it got him out of it. The look Dwight gave him said he knew what Duke was doing and he was unamused. 

He was the one who'd shown up after two days of radio silence with cop face, though, so he could go fuck himself. 

Dwight squared his shoulders, staring Duke down not so much over his nose, but his chin. "We need to talk." 

"Do we really." Duke crossed his arms over his chest, demonstrating that while Dwight was bigger, Duke was by no means _small_. He might not be able to beat Dwight in an all out brawl without help from his trouble, but he could at least hold his own, make Dwight work for — whatever the hell it was he wanted here. "I don't think we do." 

"Kirk Bowers was found dead this morning. Stabbed." 

"Okay. And — what does that have to do with me?" Duke kept his voice steady, irritated and irritating, but not shocked. Not guilty. 

No outward sign at all that he even recognized the name. 

Kirk was a member of the Guard. A self-righteous type with a trouble that could suck the oxygen out of the air around him. Duke knew that because he was on the future Duke's list. 

And now he was dead. 

Stabbed. 

And Duke had been hiding alone on his boat for days. 

"Where were you, night before last?" Dwight asked, dashing Duke's hopes that Jennifer could provide him an alibi. 

"Same place I've been since I last saw you two days ago," he said. "Here. Checking over my boat. Making sure Wade didn't do too much damage." 

Dwight blinked, his face losing some of that cop coldness. "Three days." 

Duke frowned. "What?" He heard Jennifer coming up from below-decks and shifted automatically, as though he had to hide her. Which was stupid. She wasn't the one about to get arrested here. And it wasn't as though Dwight would run around trying to besmirch her honor for spending a night with Duke. 

"The night after the bluff?" Dwight was saying. "When I gave you that envelope. That was three days ago." 

Duke thought back. He'd gotten drunk that night. Started packing the boat the night after. Then spent the night with Jennifer. Three nights, two days between. "No it wasn't." 

Dwight's cop face was completely gone now, replaced entirely with concern. "Sunday night, Duke. Where were you?" 

Duke's heart rate picked up, and he felt a sort of buzzing, trembling energy fill his limbs. "Here," he said, his voice pitching up just a little before he could stop it. " _Last night_ , I was here all night. With Jennifer." 

"Duke," Jennifer said, and her soft, apologetic tone sent dread down his back. "Today's Tuesday." 

Duke shook his head. He felt twitchy, every instinct telling him to run. To get out while he still could. " _No._ The bluff was Friday, right?" Dwight and Jennifer both nodded. "Saturday night. It rained." Another nod. "Last night was clear and Jennifer came over." 

"Yeah," Jennifer said. "But last night was Monday." She held up her phone, showing him the date. 

Duke felt a knot forming at the base of his throat. This wasn't just losing track of time. It wasn't even getting blackout drunk. This was an entire night. The day probably, too. As much as 24 hours, gone. Missing. 

This had happened to him before, a morning going missing. Someone turned up dead then, too. 

He whirled on Dwight. "Does Bowers have any family?" he asked. "Are they still troubled?" 

Dwight shook his head. "Next of kin's his Guard buddy." He leaned forward. "You seriously can't remember Sunday night?" 

Duke swallowed, shaking his head. "Day either. Or — Monday, maybe. I could swear it was two days." 

"What does that mean?" Jennifer asked, her voice rising. "What's happening?" 

"A trouble." Dwight had his phone out and to his ear, talking while it rang. "You need to come in with me, Duke. Kirk was Guard. I guarantee I'm not the only one who thought of you when I found out about him. They're already — Nathan, good." He turned slightly, shifting his focus from Duke to the phone. "We have a situation. I know I told you two to lay low for a couple days, but I need you and Audrey down at the station, now. I'll explain when you get there." He hung up the phone, not giving Nathan time to ask any questions, and turned back to Duke. 

"They already want me dead," Duke said. The adrenaline in his system faded down to a dull, familiar throb. There was a trouble in Haven, and people out to kill Duke. Just another — Tuesday. Apparently. 

"Exactly." Dwight tucked his phone away, looking relieved that Duke wasn't arguing. "And frankly, you're way more valuable to us alive." 

Duke raised an eyebrow. "You mean, assuming I didn't just murder a guy in cold blood and forget all about it." 

Jennifer winced. Dwight just nodded, unphased. "Yeah, Duke. Assuming that."


	2. Chapter 2

Duke expected to be thrown into a cell the moment they hit the station, or an interview room maybe. He'd been brought in on suspicion of murder before, after all, and felt like he knew the deal. At the very least he figured he'd be cuffed to the table in the bullpen. Instead he found himself on the couch in what had been Audrey's office, Jennifer perched nervously beside him while they waited for Nathan and Audrey to arrive. 

"This some kind of kinder, gentler police thing, Sasquatch?" 

Dwight shook his head, looking exasperated. "You're not under arrest here, Duke." 

"Uh huh." Duke folded his arms over his chest. It was so much easier to needle Dwight than to think about what was really going on here. That even he couldn't be sure he _hadn't_ killed someone. That there was a hole in his memory so large that he hadn't even noticed it was there. 

"He can't really arrest you anyway," Jennifer said, raising her hand like she was in school. "There's no evidence you did anything, right?" 

Dwight nodded. Duke frowned at her. 

"Former reporter, remember?" she said. "This isn't actually my first murder investigation." 

"Oh hey." Duke offered her a tired smirk. "Mine neither." Neither of them had really gotten any sleep last night. He wasn't actually sure when the last time he'd slept was, thanks to the _giant memory hole_. He wondered how she managed to be so chipper, but turned towards Dwight rather than ask. "We don't have any evidence I _didn't_ , either. And lack of evidence has never really seemed to stop you all before." 

Dwight shrugged. "Then yeah, it's a kinder, gentler police force. Can I get either of you anything? Coffee?" 

It was on the tip of Duke's tongue to request scotch, for all that it was barely 7 AM. He was saved from the judging looks that was sure to net him by Nathan and Audrey coming in. 

They looked good. Well-rested. Not that it was a high bar for Nathan to look better than he had. A petty voice in Duke's head wondered if it'd been a relief for Nathan to see a version of him die. He swallowed it down and offered them both a wave. 

"What is it?" Nathan asked, all business the moment he walked in. "There's a new trouble?" 

Audrey, at least, took the time to wave back and smile at Jennifer before turning to Dwight. "We thought you wanted us to lie low a little while." 

"I did," Dwight said with an apologetic shrug. "There's still plenty of people who think that you killing Nathan is the best plan, and with Founders' Day, most of the force will be too busy to try to protect either of you." He grimaced. "Looks like we can't work on that yet, though. A member of the Guard's been murdered —" 

Nathan shot a look at Duke. Because of course he did. Duke looked down at his lap, not even managing to muster enough energy to glare back. 

"— And Duke's missing time," Dwight finished. 

"The same chunk of time during which our guy was killed," Duke said, a bitter edge creeping into his tone. "So, you know. _That's_ fun." 

Audrey frowned, moving to lean against the couch next to where Duke sat, her 'solving troubles' face in full force. Something unknotted in Duke's chest seeing that, something he hadn't realized had been knotted up since the trip into the Void to get her. When he'd looked in Audrey's eyes and a bartender named Lexie looked back instead. It was just one knot of many though — he had a full sail's worth of rigging wrapped around his lungs these days. 

Still, his breath came just that much easier seeing Audrey be _Audrey_. 

"What's the scene look like?" she asked. "Is there anything to say Duke had been there? Fingerprints? A weapon on Duke's boat, maybe?" Nathan snorted, and she rolled her eyes. "A _recently used_ weapon on Duke's boat?" 

"No." Dwight shook his head. "But the way people are wound up right now, Guard's not going to want to wait to find proof. We need to get to the bottom of this _fast_ , and we need to keep Duke safe while we do." 

" _Not_ in a cell," Duke suggested, when Nathan opened his mouth to speak. "Preferably." 

Nathan shot him a faintly surprised look. "Wasn't going to say 'cell'." 

"Uh huh." They'd done this dance before. Duke got to his feet. "You know what? Maybe I should just ship out. I'm not saying they couldn't find me on the water, but it'd at least be harder, right? I just need to get my bilge pump back from Jack —" 

Jennifer made a little noise of protest. Audrey grabbed his arm. "No, Duke. We need you here." 

"Meant to be the three of us, remember?" Nathan said, still with that odd, surprised look. "Other you said so." 

Duke felt like he'd been hit in the chest. He shouldn't leave, because they needed him, because it was supposed to be the three of them. And yet he'd spent the last few days alone, long enough for whatever this trouble was to latch onto him and — _eat_ his memories, or whatever. It was Dwight who'd thought to check on him, that first night after the bluff. Jennifer who'd come to find him last night. Audrey and Nathan had been busy 'lying low'. Duke jerked his arm out of Audrey's grip. "You guys heard the part where we can't prove this wasn't me, right? _I_ can't even swear I didn't kill this guy." 

"I can," Audrey said, voice like steel. After a moment, Nathan nodded. 

"You wouldn't," he said. "We know that." Duke shot him an incredulous look and he shrugged. "Now." 

"Not without reason," Dwight added. 

"I don't actually know you that well," Jennifer said. "But if you would that means I kind of helped a murderer escape custody last week? And I'm not okay with that. So I'm going to side with your friends here." 

Duke wrapped his hands around the back of his neck, letting out a slow breath. "I thought you said my friends were terrible." He shrugged, meeting Nathan's eye. "No offense." 

Nathan scowled. Audrey whacked Duke in the arm. Dwight choked on a laugh. Jennifer hissed and flapped her hand at him, shooting all three of them apologetic looks. Duke felt his mouth curl up on one side as another knot loosened. 

"Alright," he said finally. "I won't run." He held up a finger. " _Yet_. But — can we please find some actual evidence that I didn't do this? Because I'm still really freaking out here." 

Dwight nodded. "Already working on it. Stan's pulling the surveillance footage from the docks right now." 

"Should take another look at the crime scene, too," Nathan said. "No offense, Dwight, but you're a cleaner, not a detective." 

"None taken." Dwight looked so impossibly _guileless_ , Duke could hardly believe it. The man had leadership skills, sure, but Duke wasn't sure he could think of anyone less suited to the role of Chief of Police in Haven than him. For one thing, Duke knew from personal experience just how unconcerned Dwight could be about following the law. For another — he was just too _nice_. Like a giant, ruthless teddy bear. Who attracted bullets. "I'll run you out there. Audrey, you good to stay here with Duke, look over the surveillance footage?" 

Audrey nodded. Jennifer raised her hand again. "What should I do? That isn't just staying here. Reporter, remember? I can be useful!" 

Duke was disappointed she didn't want to stay with him, but swallowed it down. He needed as many people in his corner as possible. And anyway, she'd been with him all night. He couldn't blame her for wanting a little space. 

"You could try the Herald," he suggested. "See what Vince and Dave have on memory troubles." 

Dwight grimaced. "Dave is, ah, maybe not the best source right now. He's still a little out of sorts from the whole 'possessed by an evil Void monster' thing." 

Right. Duke supposed he couldn't blame the guy for that. 

"Vince and Dave have never been the best sources," Nathan said, looking concerned. "They have their own agendas. Getting the full truth out of them can be . . . difficult." 

"I can handle difficult sources," Jennifer said, sticking her chin in the air. "And anyway, maybe I can search their archives." She frowned. "They have archives, right?" 

"They have a whole vault," Audrey confirmed. 

"Then I'm on it." Jennifer snapped her heels together and gave them a jaunty salute, then marched out into the hall." 

"Does she know where the Herald is?" Audrey asked. Duke could only shrug. 

"It's on the way to the crime scene," Dwight said, waving Nathan ahead of him. "We'll give her a lift." 

They both filed out, leaving Duke and Audrey alone for the first time in — several months. Duke looked at his hands, then back at her. 

"You really think I couldn't have done this?" 

"I think you could," Audrey said, tilting her head at him. "I don't think you _would_ have, though." 

Duke ran his hand through his hair. He really wanted to believe that. "What makes you so sure?" 

Audrey sat down next to him, reaching for his hand. "The same thing that made you sure you could find me under Lexie." She reached up, brushing a lock of loose hair out of his face. "I know you, Duke Crocker. Just as well as you know me." 

Lexie. Duke thought of the bright, prickly, sardonic woman he'd met so briefly in that metaphysical bar. She'd taken one look at him _and_ Nathan and looked like she wanted to eat them both up. It was a look Duke was quite familiar with, a love 'em and leave 'em, here for pleasure and nothing else look that would never have graced Audrey Parker's face. The Barn had buried Audrey deep. 

He only remembered being in it for seconds, but clearly his memory wasn't worth much right now. Maybe the Barn had messed with his head, as well. 

Duke considered asking Audrey what she thought of that theory, but decided against it. She had enough on her plate already, with the troubles and the Guard and everything. It'd be a moot point anyway if they managed to prove Duke had been on the _Rouge_ at the time of the murder. "We should check that surveillance footage, he said instead, giving her a hand-squeeze and a small smile. "Prove you right."

Audrey nodded. "Let's get to it." 

* 

The surveillance footage was not as reassuring as either of them might have hoped. They found the feed for the camera nearest the _Rouge_ and clocked Duke arriving home Friday night and staying there through Sunday morning, popping out onto the deck occasionally to rearrange or pack up — or stare at the water, drinking — before vanishing below again. Audrey bit her lower lip and shot Duke glances throughout, and Duke could only imagine what she was thinking. 

It was a little pathetic really, an active guy like him hiding away in his stateroom for days just because his future self did what everyone did eventually, and died. 

In front of him. 

With eyes like oily pits. 

Duke swallowed and watched himself step out above-decks again, this time securing his furniture. Audrey rubbed her upper arm, shooting him another of those looks. "Are you — were you going to — leave?" 

She sounded hurt. Duke shrank a little in his seat. "Thought about it," he admitted. "It is kind of what I do, you know." 

"No you don't." He could feel her staring at him full-on, now, but didn't look back. 

"Sure I do. Ask Nathan." 

Audrey shook her head. "You used to, maybe. But the Duke I know doesn't run away from anything." 

The Duke she knew died fighting an otherworldly monster on a bluff. 

Duke pointed to the laptop screen, where the shot showed him pulling out his phone. "This," he said. "I don't remember this." 

"A phone call?" 

"I didn't talk to anyone." He leaned forward, checking the time stamp on the video. Sunday afternoon. "I noticed my bilge pump was missing, and then Jennifer came over. That's it." 

It was a short conversation. The Duke on the screen hung up and turned to face the dock, where a figure stood, its back to the camera. 

"That's not Jennifer," Audrey said. The figure, though indistinct on the edge of the black and white frame, was far too large. "Is there another angle on this?" 

"No." Duke felt cold, watching the Duke on the screen have a heated argument he had no memory of having. "I unhooked most of them when I first got back to town." He felt her staring again and shrugged. "I don't usually _want_ cops to be able to track all my activities." 

Audrey rolled her eyes with her usual 'why must you be a criminal?' smirk and looked back at the feed. "Whoever it is, you're not happy to see them. You look — pissed." 

He did indeed. Duke watched himself gesture angrily to the figure, phone still in hand, then storm off the boat after them and disappear off screen. Audrey sped up the feed, and they watched night fall over the boat, then retreat again, with no further action. 

Duke hadn't been on the _Cape Rouge_ at all on Sunday night. Or most of Monday morning. Duke rubbed at his mouth, unable to tear his eyes off the screen. His stomach roiled with dread. They couldn't see his expression when he finally returned Monday afternoon, but his posture was slumped, defeated. He went below decks immediately, and stayed there until another figure, this one clearly Jennifer, arrived on the docks. 

Duke closed his eyes as bile rose in the back of his throat. As the doubt and fear he'd been feeling since Dwight and Jennifer proved it was Tuesday and not Monday coalesced and — and _congealed_ into conviction and horror. He'd killed Kirk Bowers. He was sure of it now. He could feel it in the tremble of his hands, even though he still couldn't remember anything that had happened. He shoved to his feet hard enough to knock Nathan's desk chair over and paced, unable to keep still in light of the revelation. 

Maybe it was a kill list his double had left him. Kirk had had a powerful trouble, and his future self could have wanted Duke to have it. Or — or the Barn did, maybe. It deleted memories, manipulated people to kill. Howard had wanted Audrey to kill Nathan, after all, and the other Duke had said ending the troubles had always meant ending troubled people themselves. Maybe he hadn't fixed anything at all by coming back in time. Maybe he'd come back, broken and bruised, and died up on that bluff for _nothing_ — 

Audrey planted herself right in front of him, and Duke almost landed on his ass trying not to run her over. She steadied him with a hand on his elbow, steel in every line of her body. Duke was sure he was about to end up in a cell. But all she said was "Check your phone." 

". . . What?" 

"You got a phone call, right?" she asked. "Your phone should have a record of it. Maybe it'll help us find out what's going on." 

Duke nodded and fumbled his phone from his pocket. He should have thought of that. He hadn't slept in maybe 48 hours now, though, so maybe he could be forgiven. He flipped his phone open and scrolled through his call history. 

"Blocked number." 

_Dammit_. 

Audrey didn't seem concerned. "I'll get Laverne to get us the records from the phone company." She gave him a teasing smile, trying to lighten the mood. Usually that was his job. "Better tell me now if there'll be anything embarrassing on there." 

He appreciated the effort, and dredged up a small smile in return. "I was presumed dead for six months. Who would I call?" 

He looked back down at the phone again, scrolling idly through the log. He hadn't had much time to use it in the past couple days, so he didn't expect to see much before he hit the handful of business calls he would have made last fall. . . . 

There was a long list, it turned out. Two or three calls a week, some only seconds long, some lasting a minute or two, though there was no voicemails to go with them. 

All of them were from Nathan. 

Duke closed his phone and tucked it away again. He had no idea what to do with that information. 

"Hey." Audrey touched his arm again. "This doesn't mean anything for sure. All we know is you're missing time, and you weren't on your boat. This could be anything." 

"Yeah," Duke said, looking away. Audrey moved her hand to his chin, turning his face back towards her. 

" _Whatever_ this is, Duke, we're in it together. Got it?" 

Duke closed his eyes, leaning down to press his forehead to hers. Just the way he'd done six months ago, when they'd thought they were saying goodbye. "Thanks." 

He just wished he could believe it. 

* 

Sitting around a police station all morning was ridiculously boring, even when you were trying to solve a murder. By ten AM, they were still scanning through the harbor footage, looking for a clearer angle on whomever Duke had chased away from the _Cape Rouge_ , and Duke could tell even Audrey was getting sick of sitting around the office. Her style of police work involved much more time in the field, usually. Not glorified babysitting of the prime suspect. 

Duke was dozing on the couch when her patience finally ran out, and he woke with a jerk as she pulled on her jacket. 

"Time for the cell?" he asked. 

Audrey rolled her eyes. "Do you _want_ to be in a cell, Duke?" 

"Not particularly." 

"Then stop bringing it up. I'm getting _coffee_. Maybe a snack. You're not the only one running on fumes here." 

Duke swung to his feet. If she was leaving the station — and he wasn't getting locked to or in anything while she did — he was coming too. "Let me guess: you and Nathan have been making up for lost time?" 

Audrey thwacked him in the chest with the back of her hand. " _No!_ . . . A little." She smiled and shook her head. "I've been having — dreams. I don't think the Barn wanted to let me go." 

"Dreaming about our girl Lexie, huh?" Duke asked, following her out through the bullpen and out onto the street. "She seemed — adventurous." 

"That she was," Audrey agreed. "You would have liked her." 

Duke bumped her with his elbow. "I prefer original recipe Audrey Parker, thanks." 

Audrey frowned and Duke kicked himself, wondering what he'd said wrong. 

"I don't —" she started, then shook her head. "I'm not sure she still exists. If she ever did, at least in here." 

"Audrey." 

"I'm serious, Duke. I _remember_ Lexie. So much clearer than I ever did Lucy. I remember how she grew up. Why she dropped out of school. Her string of trashy boyfriends. Her best friend Rhonda! Somtimes when Nathan makes his stupid jokes, I wonder how the hell I fell for such a total nerd. I never used to feel that way." 

"I mean, I've wondered that myself," Duke said, aiming for teasing and not quite nailing it. Audrey sent him an appreciative look anyway. "So . . . what? You're part Lexie now? You're worried some of your Audrey-ness is missing?" 

"Yeah. I guess. I just want things to go back to normal. But I can't tell whose normal I want. Or what normal even means." 

"You've been holed up with Nathan for days," Duke pointed out. "That doesn't sound normal to me." 

"The Guard still wants me to kill him. We don't want to give them a chance to force the issue." 

"And to avoid the Guard, you've been avoiding _everyone_ ," Duke said. "Well, mission accomplished." He opened the door to the coffee shop for her, then swallowed. "Until now, anyway." 

Jordan stood on the other side of the door, staring apoplectic daggers at them both. 

"Jordan." Duke raised his hand in a little wave, his habitual assholery rearing its head in the face of her clear hatred. "How you doing?" 

"Is it done?" Jordan asked, shooting Duke a nasty glare before zeroing back in on Audrey. "Is Nathan dead?" 

Audrey hissed, drawing back enough to bump into Duke's chest. 

"Don't you think you'd notice, Jordan?" Duke asked, baring his teeth at her in a sharp grin. "If she'd killed Nathan and the troubles were gone, don't you think your Guard buddies would have sent at least, like, a memo or something?" 

Jordan's glare veered back to him. "I don't know, Crocker. It's not like _I_ can feel my trouble." She raised her hands, poised to pull off a glove. "Care to test it?" 

"He's _not_ dead," Audrey said, stepping forward again and putting herself firmly between them. "And he's not _going_ to die. Jennifer was wrong; me killing Nathan won't solve anything." 

"You sure?" Jordan's eyes were bright with fury. People were starting to stare. "It's worth a shot. Worst case scenario, at least Wuornos is still dead." 

"And so are you," Duke said. "And so is every other troubled person in the world." 

"Is that a _threat_ , Crocker?" 

Duke raised his hand to respond, only to get cut off by Audrey. 

"It's new information," she said. "They found out when they got me back. The Barn could never cure the troubles. It could make them dormant for the usual cycle, or it could kill everyone with a trouble." She bit her lip and reached for Jordan's bare arm. Jordan flinched, but didn't pull away. Duke wondered what it would be like, to fear ever touching skin to skin with someone else. 

He'd be angry at the whole world, too.

"We'll find another way," Audrey said, turning her full Audrey charm on Jordan and watching her melt by degrees. "One that doesn't kill _anyone_." 

Jordan yanked her arm away, expression going dark. "Too late." 

Audrey's expression crumpled. "Jordan —" 

"The Barn may not have been permanent," Jordan continued, ruthless. "But it _worked_. Until Nathan broke it, and doomed this entire town." She turned grabbing a collection can from the nearby condiment station. "You see this? This is to collect donations for the families of firefighters who died trying to save us from the meteors _you_ were supposed to protect us from. Some of them were burned so badly all there was left was charcoal and teeth." Audrey flinched. Duke frowned, something niggling at the edge of his brain even as Jordan continued. "People have _already_ died because you all decided _your_ life was more important." 

Audrey shook her head. "Not to me. I told Nathan to let me go. I asked Duke to make sure —" 

"Don Keaton," Duke said, only realizing once they were both staring at him that he'd said it out loud. "Survivor's guilt." He grabbed the can from Jordan, looking over the sign pasted to its front, but it didn't list any of the firefighters themselves. "Is Don Keaton one of the firefighters?" 

Jordan shook her head. "I don't know." 

"Duke," Audrey said, turning towards him. "What is it?" 

Duke shook his head, already on his way back out the door. 

Don's name was the first one on the list his future self had left him. Did that mean his was the first trouble to spring up? Or just the first that Duke had thought of while making the list? An incineration trouble was bad news, maybe his was one of the more deadly troubles. Dammit, Duke should have been working the list all along, not moping in the police station over lost time. If anyone else died because Duke hadn't been fast enough. . . .

"Duke, wait!" Audrey called, chasing after him, Jordan hot on her heels. "What's going on?" 

Duke was saved from answering by her phone. From the look on her face, it wasn't good news. 

"There's a body in the sculpture garden." She hung up, staring at her phone before shooting a glance at Jordan. "Completely burned. Down to charcoal and teeth." 

Duke felt a small twinge of relief that it wasn't another stabbing, before the horror and guilt won out. "Don Keaton has an incineration trouble. Triggered by survivor's guilt." 

Audrey gaped. Jordan glared. "How the hell do you know that?" 

Duke started down the sidewalk again, towards the harbor. "Because I have a list of all the troubles that are going to go off in the next few weeks." 

"You have a _what?_ " Jordan shook her head, looking like she'd like nothing better than to throttle Duke where he stood. "We should have taken you out the moment you activated, Crocker." 

"Yeah," Duke said. "Probably." He gestured down the street with his head. "So you coming or what?" 

They were.

* 

"Huh," Jordan said, looking around as she walked into the _Rouge_ 's galley. "Who knew you could decorate." 

"Don't make me regret letting you in here." Duke glared at her, not so much because he was angry — he was too freaked out and tired to manage angry — but just on general principle. He picked up the manilla envelope still sitting where he'd left it on the galley table and handed it to Audrey. "Dwight found this at the safe house. It was left for me by —" He cut a glance at Jordan again. "— Him." 

Audrey opened it carefully and pulled out the sheaf of paper inside. "Don Keaton. Incineration. First on the list." 

"Let me see that." Jordan snatched the top sheet and looked it over. "Mike Gallagher? Even I don't know what his trouble is. He never talks about it." 

"I wouldn't either," Duke said with a shrug. "But I didn't really get that option, did I." 

"Cry me a river, Crocker." 

"Kirk Bowers is on here," Audrey said. Duke sighed. 

"Yeah. I probably should have mentioned that." 

Audrey held up the list. "Kirk's been crossed off." 

"What?!" Duke grabbed the page from her, crumpling it in the process. Sure enough, Kirk's name and trouble description had been firmly crossed out, like someone had checked him off a to-do list. "I didn't do this." He looked up at Audrey. "This wasn't crossed off last night, you can ask Jennifer. And I've been with her or you or Dwight all day." 

"Hey!" Jordan snatched the page, crumpling it further. " _Why_ is Kirk's name crossed off?" 

"Because he's dead?" Duke grabbed both pages back from her, handing them to Audrey. At least she'd be able to do something useful with them. 

" _What?!_ " 

Huh. "Guess your finger's not quite as firm on the pulse of Guard news as you thought." 

"Duke," Audrey said. 

"Shut _up_ , Crocker." Jordan crowded into Duke's space. "I find out you had _anything_ to do with this —" 

" _Jordan_ ," Audrey said. 

"You'll do what? I've taken you down before, sister, I can do it again." 

" _Hey!_ " Audrey shoved herself between them. "We don't know anything yet. So both of you _knock it off!_ " 

Duke glared at Jordan over Audrey's head. Jordan stared back, full crazy-eye. Audrey pushed against Duke's chest, and he reluctantly folded. She was good at that. No one could make him back down quite like Audrey Parker. 

It was more than a little terrifying. 

"Good. Thank you." Audrey stepped back again. "Now. We _will_ find out what happened to Kirk. But this rogue trouble, Don, he needs to come first. Do you have any more information, Duke?" 

Duke shook his head. "Just that list." 

"Survivor's guilt," Jordan said. "Kind of a lot of that going on lately." 

"The body in the garden was burned to charcoal," Audrey said. "Sounds like a firefighter thing to me." She pulled her phone out and dialed. "Nathan. Does the name 'Don Keaton' mean anything to you?" She started towards the door. "We think he might be the one with the burning trouble. Duke's got a list. It'll be easier to show you — when?" She checked her watch. "I'll meet you there. Bye." She hung up and shook her head. "Don Keaton's on the list to get a medal at today's Founder's Day ceremony." 

Duke hissed. "He could take out half the town." 

"He's already started. A cabbie was killed downtown. We need to find this guy fast." 

"Split up?" Duke suggested. Audrey bit her lip. 

"You need to stay here, Duke." 

Duke felt cold. "Audrey. Come on." 

Jordan narrowed her eyes. "Not that I'm complaining, but why can't Crocker help?" 

"Because of my delicate disposition." Duke shook his head. "Isn't there anyone else you can go intimidate?" 

"Duke's been losing time," Audrey said, seeming unaffected by Duke's betrayed look. "We need to make sure he's not affected by some kind of trouble himself." 

Jordan looked Duke up and down and shrugged. "I have some Guard buddies who'd love to keep tabs on him." 

"Uh, no thank you." Duke pushed one hand at her, careful not to hit exposed skin, then turned to Audrey again. "I can _help_." 

"You can," Audrey said. "By _staying here_. We'll need every officer we can get downtown; Jordan, can you get a Guard patrol here?" 

"The Guard wants me dead _too_ , Audrey." 

"Non-violent ones," Audrey said. "Just to keep an eye on things." 

Jordan nodded. "Yeah. We're not all blood-thirsty thugs, you know." 

"Could have fooled me," Duke muttered. 

"Duke," Audrey said. " _Please._ " 

Duke deflated. "Fine. But Jordan is not one of the ones staying." 

"Like I'd want to." Jordan rolled her eyes. "I'll make some calls. Get some people down here, get everyone else looking out for Keaton. But then we focus on Kirk. And _ending_ these damn troubles." 

Audrey smiled, touching Jordan's bare arm again. "Thank you." 

Jordan swallowed, her eyes falling shut in something that almost looked like pain, before she yanked her arm away again. "Whatever." She turned and stormed off the boat. 

"She's a charmer," Duke said. 

Audrey touched his arm, the same soothing gesture she'd just used on Jordan. So, you know, nothing personal or anything. "You'll be okay?" 

"I'll be fine." Duke very deliberately didn't jerk away. "You're right. Out there in that crowd, without knowing what's going on with me — too many things could go wrong. I'll just — take a nap. I could use one, anyway." 

Audrey searched his face, frowning, then popped up on her toes to press a kiss to his cheek. It was Duke's turn to close his eyes. 

It wasn't pain. It was so much worse. 

She squeezed his hand, and was gone before he opened his eyes again, taking the list with her.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is where the "hurt/comfort" tag really starts to kick in. Fair warning: there's a fair amount of puking involved. I tried not to go into too much detail, but _caveat reader_ and all. . . .

The man's neck was thick as a tree trunk, his fist almost as big as Duke's whole head. He loomed over Duke, his fist tangled in Duke's shirt. Duke heard the hollow thunk of his own heels hitting wood — the dock, he guessed. He could only get his eyes open in snatches, something dark and insidious dragging him under. 

He'd been drugged. Or — hit, maybe. He couldn't remember. Audrey and Jordan had left and he'd been alone, and so tired. Had he laid down? Drunk something? Heard this guy creeping up behind him? Was this Jordan's Guard buddy or just a thug? He didn't think he owed anyone money right now, but he wasn't sure. He couldn't move. Couldn't fight. Couldn't get his damned eyes open. 

The smell of something sharp hit his nostrils — drugged, he was _drugged_ — and the dark swirled up over his head. 

He was in motion next. A truck? The man was smaller now, wiry-haired and weasley and no less threatening. Duke wanted to shout, or moan, or — ideally — wrap his hands around the guy's creepy little throat and _squeeze_ , but he couldn't move. Could barely open his eyes as he bobbed, just at the surface of consciousness. 

The smell came back, and he went under. 

They threw a bucket of water in his face. 

Duke woke like a shot from a gun, gasping and shuddering. The man with the tree neck grinned in Duke's face and spoke in a voice like a fog horn. 

"He's awake." 

"Well yeah," another voice said, cocksure and amused. "But he's all wet now. You couldn't have tried something else?" 

Duke spit, trying to clear his mouth of the foul tasting water, and tugged experimentally with his arms and legs. He was tied to a chair. One of those metal folding things, with what felt like plastic twine. It was going to hurt like hell to get out of this, he knew from experience, and there was no point in tearing up his own wrists struggling if there was an easier escape route available. 

He'd have to talk his way out. It wouldn't be the first time. By the way the human Ken doll pulled up a chair of his own, Duke was guessing he was looking to chat anyway. 

"Hey," Ken said, face a perfect picture of friendly concern. "How you feeling, buddy? You went through a _bunch_ of chloroform." 

Duke side-eyed Tree-Neck, wondering if Wiry was around too, or if Ken's sidekick had some sort of transformation trouble. "Well," he said, then coughed and cleared his throat. "That explains the headache." 

"Seriously though," Ken said, holding up a bottle of water with a straw. He was good cop today, apparently. "I've never seen anyone come off that stuff so fast. Is that a natural thing, or a boost you got from the old Croat?" 

Duke could not have heard that correctly. "The old — what?" 

Ken leaned in, pressing the bottle closer until Duke had to put his mouth on the straw just to keep it from going up his nose. "Wiped you, did he? His own hound. I tell you, that guy's got no class." He looked down at Duke's lips, then back up. "You should really drink this. I mean, it's not like we went through all this effort just to poison you. And if we want to drug you again, well. Sinister is _very_ handy with the rag." 

Duke flicked his eyes to Tree-Neck. 

"Ah," Ken said, and pointed the other way. Duke turned his head a little and saw the wiry guy looming just past his shoulder. Duke closed his lips around the straw and sipped before leaning back as best he could to speak again. 

"Sinister, huh? Suits him." 

"Right?" Ken beamed. "God, it's _really_ too bad you're Croatoan's bitch. I feel like we could have been friends." 

Duke hated it when kidnappers tried to be cute. He sipped the water again and stared Ken down. 

"Where are my manners?" Ken asked. "So you've met Sinister. This here is Heavy. Very handy guy to have around if you want to quietly abduct a grown man. And I'm William. And _you_ , of course, are the latest Crocker." 

"Duke," Duke said. 

"Don't care," William said, smiling. "All I care about is that you're in my way." 

Duke spat out the straw and leaned back again. "So why didn't you just kill me?" 

William. That name sounded familiar. Not from the list, though. What did he know about an evil William? 

"Because," William said. "You're just a tool. And if handled properly? A tool can be used by _anyone_." 

So. That was foreboding. "To do what, exactly?" 

"Get Mara back." 

Right. William was one of the Void monsters. And Mara was Audrey's evil twin. And the other thing William had said, 'the old Croat'. . . .

Croatoan. The thing that had possessed Dave. He was the reason Duke was missing time. They hadn't stopped him at all. 

His future self really had died for nothing. 

"You've heard of her!" Wlliam said, entirely misinterpreting Duke's expression. "Do they tell stories? Is she the local boogeyman? She'd love that. She got the _biggest_ kick out of people being afraid of her." 

"How'd you get out of the Void?" Duke asked, and felt a kind of twisted satisfaction watching William's face fall. He didn't get the direct this whole conversation after all. 

"Through the door, of course." 

"We didn't _open_ the door." 

William smiled again. "You sure about that? I mean. Your memory's not the _most_ reliable right now." Duke flinched and William's smile grew sharper. "It's not a very nice feeling, is it. That your body's gone on adventures your mind doesn't know about. Now try that for _centuries_. Imagine your whole _self_ erased, overwritten. Reprogrammed again and again and again. That's what they did to Mara. That's what you're going to save her from." 

Duke shook his head. "The hell makes you think I can do anything like that?" 

"You already _have_. When you pulled Audrey out of Lexie. I don't know how you did it, but you did. You had her aware and out of that Barn faster than I could ever have believed. I just need you to do it again." 

So Mara wasn't Audrey's twin, really. She was Audrey Prime. Buried somewhere beneath Audrey and Lexie and Lucy and Sarah, and all of the others who Audrey had been. And this William guy had known her, and wanted her back. 

"You're the guy," Duke said, tilting his head. "The 'kill the one you love' loophole, that was added to get rid of you, wasn't it." 

"Yeah, maybe," William said, looking unconcerned. "She won't though. So don't you worry about that." 

"I wasn't." Duke shrugged as best he could. "Because Mara's not coming back." 

William dropped his head with a chuckle. "Oh she is. Whether you help me or not. The other way's just _way_ messier. Should still be fun, though." He stood, looming over Duke, and held up a little black blob between his fingers. Duke's skin prickled. "Heavy. Hold him down." 

"What?" Duke asked, jerking on reflex when Heavy's giant hands landed on his shoulders. "Now that I said no, now you're poisoning me?" 

"I'm doing you a favor, actually." William crushed the blob in his fist and opened his hand again. The black coated his palm and fingers. "Even though you're refusing to do me one. I'm just that kind of guy. You see, Croatoan's out there right now too. And he's got his eyes on you. He wants something from you. I don't know the details yet, but it has something to do with that trouble of yours. And I _do_ know I don't want him to get it." He yanked Duke's shirt open, tearing off several buttons. "So I'm going to break it." 

Duke jerked again, starting to sweat. "Break what?" 

"Your trouble." William grinned. "This is going to sting." He pressed his hand to Duke's chest, just under his clavicle. 

Duke screamed.

*

The dark current was pulling him under again. Duke let it this time, or tried to — somehow he kept bobbing back up to the surface.

He hated the surface. The surface _hurt_. 

Duke had suffered a lot in his time. He'd gotten his ass kicked more times than he could count. He'd been punched, kicked, thrown, choked, knocked unconscious. . . . And that was all just by Nathan. He'd been drowned on dry land by Daphne, tazed by Jordan's trouble, and beaten by Lynette's plaster Lady Justice. He'd fallen off the Gull's balcony and been dropped into an icy seal tank. He'd been very nearly _aged_ to death by Helena and his own magic daughter. He'd had CPR — an extremely uncomfortable procedure — performed on him twice just in the last year, once on concrete stairs. He was extremely familiar with pain. He knew what it felt like to die. 

He'd prefer _any_ of that to the way he felt right now. 

He couldn't tell if it was night, or if his eyes weren't working properly. His headache was bad enough that it could literally be blinding. He knew he was walking by the way each step jolted through his legs, but without that he'd never be able to say which way was down. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe the road he followed ran sideways, or upside down. This was Haven — he really hoped this was still Haven — and stranger things had happened. 

Maybe he was still tied to that chair, and Sinister and Heavy were arrythmically beating the soles of his feet with sticks. 

Worse than that, worse than all the dull and sharp pains in every joint, worse than the disorientation and his head full of thick, boiling sludge, was his stomach, which rolled and flipped and swayed unceasingly. William and his cronies really had poisoned him. He was breaking apart on an atomic level. 

Maybe he'd get lucky and melt. 

His ears weren't working right either, or maybe his head just wasn't processing properly, because by the time he worked out that the rumble he heard was an engine, the horn was drowning it out and the squeal of brakes and spray of gravel as the car swerved sideways to keep from running him over knocked him down as solidly as the car's bumper ever could. But hey, at least now he knew which way was down. 

"Crocker? What the hell?!"

Duke felt something rise up his throat and couldn't tell if it was a groan or vomit until it left his mouth. He caught a glimpse of legs leaping back, clad in shiny black, the same shade as the viscous gunk he spat onto the pavement. 

Jordan. 

Fucking _perfect_. 

Once he'd started throwing up, his riotous stomach refused to let him stop, even long enough to breathe. He gagged and choked as more and more black sludge forced its way up his throat and out his mouth and nose, his already dim vision darkening further. 

Voices crowded around him — _jesus christ. . . .the fuck is that stuff. . . . keep back. . . . should put him out of his misery . . . good riddance_ — and he found himself hoping one of them had a gun, that they'd put it to his head and be done with it. 

"Shut up," Jordan barked, her voice sharp enough to pierce the din. Duke felt hands on his shoulders, hot as brands, and this time he did manage to groan — or at least whimper. "Crocker. _Duke_. Can you hear me?" 

Duke threw up on her shoes. 

The yelling started again and Duke somehow found himself flat on his back and that was _bad_. That was how you aspirated and drowned, so he had to roll over. But his body was filled with hot lead, and he couldn't move, couldn't see at all anymore, couldn't catch his breath. 

Well. At least he wouldn't have to worry about killing anyone anymore. 

An explosion. 

"Get the hell away from him!" 

Scattering footsteps, and cool, papery hands on his cheeks. 

"You. Wednesday Adams. Help me roll him." 

More heat in his throat, choking him. 

"This isn't normal." 

"No shit, Sunshine." 

"I'm calling an ambulance." 

"You could. Or you could be useful and get him into the house." 

More hands, hot and cold, under his shoulders. They sat him up — or down, or sideways, he'd lost track again — and he choked and heaved and finally, blessedly, passed out.

*

Duke woke to soft voices at a distance, and the warring scents of sandalwood and gin.

He was reasonably certain that meant he wasn't in a hospital. 

He was lying on his side on something soft and fuzzy, an equally soft and fuzzy weight on top of him. There was a pillow under his head and another between his knees. Someone had made an effort to keep him comfortable, so he was pretty sure he wasn't in the Guard's hands, either. There was no saltwater-and-coffee smell, so it wasn't Audrey's, no sway of the ocean so it wasn't the _Rouge_. No varnish or despair, so Nathan's was out, no ancient cigar smoke that would mean the Teagues'. He had no idea what Dwight's home might smell like, or where the man might even live, but he was pretty sure Dwight did that on purpose, so the odds that Duke would end up there, even when dying, seemed pretty slim. 

He had no idea where he was. It should have been terrifying, but Duke couldn't dredge up the energy to be anything other than tired and sore. 

And _hot_. 

The fuzzy weight — a blanket, he realized — was sweltering. He shifted feebly, trying to shove it off, but moving made whatever he was lying on start to spin, and the absolute last thing he wanted just now was to throw up again. Just the memory of how that had felt, fighting his own body for air while Jordan and her Guard buddies closed in around him, dragged a strangled groan from his throat. 

"You're awake," a man said, a voice Duke didn't recognize. He tensed, freezing in place, but it was too late to play possum. He wrenched his eyes open, squinting against warm sunlight, and caught sight of a white haired, balding man in what looked like a very cozy cream sweater, just as he moved out of Duke's sightline. "Sweetheart!" the man called. "The boy's awake!" 

Duke tried to move again, tilting room be damned. He made it up on one elbow before a sharp pain in the crook of his other arm drew him up short. A butterfly needle was taped there, attached to a long, clear tube. An IV. He touched the tube, tempted to rip it out and run, but that would only make it hurt — and bleed — more, and leave a trail on the carpet, besides. 

And anyway, the thing was taped pretty thoroughly in place. And his fingers felt like dead sardines. 

"You seemed the sort who might try to yank it out." 

Duke looked up to see a short, no-nonsense sort of old woman standing in the doorway, her arms crossed. He looked around the rest of the room rather than meet her quirked eyebrow. It was a small space, with enough windows to make it cozy instead of cramped. Duke lay on a couch, an overstuffed thing made of soft blue corduroy that backed up against the window wall. A large wood desk stood against the wall towards his feet, facing the door by Duke's head. Matching bookcases lined the wall opposite. 

He was in someone's home office. An elderly couple's, apparently. Who had experience with medical care. 

He looked back at the woman again. She looked familiar, though he couldn't place her just yet. Her lips were pursed, and she tapped her foot, clearly waiting with limited patience for him to catch up. 

"Now," she said, when she'd apparently decided he had. "You want to tell me how my former pot dealer ended up collapsed and vomiting on the street in front of my house?" 

Duke frowned. He hadn't sold pot regularly since he took over the Gull, but that would explain the vague familiarity. He tried, but couldn't come up with a name for her. He definitely wasn't firing on all cylinders yet. He shivered, the sweltering feeling from when he'd first woken up replaced by body-wide chills, and tugged on the blanket, shifting gingerly so he could lean against the arm of the couch. The woman watched him and nodded with a faint snort. 

"Suppose it's like teachers," she said. "You always want to think you're special, but you're just another paycheck to your dealer." She pressed her hand to her chest. "Gloria Verrano. And you're Duke Crocker." 

"Yeah," Duke said, but it came out more than half-croak. He sounded almost as bad as his future self had, and _he'd_ been strangled. 

"I wouldn't try talking just yet, kiddo," Gloria said, bustling over with a paper cup. "Not until you're keeping water down. You threw up a good four stomachs' worth of whatever that crap was, and IV fluids don't do much for vocal cords." 

Duke took the cup with a nod of thanks, and groaned when his trembling hand refused to hold it still enough to drink from. "Feel like crap," he rasped. 

"No damn wonder there. Whatever trouble hit you, it wasn't fucking around." She pressed the back of her hand to his forehead, and the cool, dry feel of it was so startlingly soothing that Duke couldn't help but lean into it. "Still isn't, judging by that fever. But at least hopefully the whole 'vomiting hot tar' phase is over." 

Duke remembered the feeling like his sinuses were boiling, and shuddered hard enough to spill his water. 

"None of that now." Gloria took the cup and shifted her hand to the back of Duke's neck as she pressed the cup's lip to his own. "Don't want you spilling on Lincoln's nice couch." 

"What's that, dear?" the old man — Lincoln apparently — called. 

"Nothing!" Gloria yelled back. "He's a beautiful man, my Lincoln is, but he's deaf as a door stop."

Duke smiled faintly as he took a cautious sip of the water. She pulled the cup away again, though she kept that soothing hand on the back of his neck. "That's it," she said. "Let's see how that sits, then we'll try a little more. You keep the water down and we can see about moving onto crackers." 

Duke nodded, closing his eyes and trying to ignore the steady throbbing in his head, the broken glass in his joints. 

He hadn't been sick like this in a long time. He didn't really have the time or space to let himself convalesce, so he'd learned a long time ago how to stave off a cold, or work through a flu. When you lived alone on a boat, even one that stayed docked most of the time, you couldn't really afford to take any real "time off". Even at his sickest, though, he'd never had anything like this: a gentle hand holding him up, fingers tracing soothing circles along his spine. He couldn't even remember anyone checking his temperature like that before. He'd thought that was something they'd made up for the movies. 

Something welled up from low down in his throat, and Duke braced himself to be sick again. But this turned out to be a different kind of pressure. 

"Oh. Oh honey." Duke heard the click of the cup being set aside, and then Gloria was gently wiping his cheek with her thumb. "Let it out, kitten. No need for you to hold it in. You cry all you need." 

Duke swallowed down on a whine and tried to pull away. But he was as weak as that nickname she'd just given him, and she wouldn't let him go. 

"None of that," she said, stern again. "You're a Crocker, not a Harker. You've got no excuse to hold back, you hear me? You need to cry, you'd better damn well cry." 

He couldn't, though. His face clogged up and his eyes burned, but he was in a stranger's home, in a stranger's _hands_ , and he could absolutely _not_ let go. 

So he threw up again instead. 

". . . Alright," Gloria said, nonplussed. "Suppose you can let it out that way instead." 

They'd placed a bucket by his head, something Duke didn't realize until he was leaning over it, spitting up more of that strange black crap. He wondered how many times they'd had to clean it out already. The black crap didn't smell, at least, a small blessing, but one he'd take since it made it a little easier to get himself to _stop_ throwing up than it might have been otherwise. 

Duke hated throwing up. He hated it enough to have long ago learned his limit when it came to alcohol, stopping short of blind drunk just to avoid worshipping at the porcelain altar after. Throwing up was painful and miserable and _lonely_ — except, apparently, when you were in the home of one of your old customers. Gloria didn't back away squealing in disgust or yell at him for making a mess or even turn away and leave him to it. She stayed right where she was, her cool hand still rubbing his neck, the other brushing his sweaty hair back out of his face. Duke turned his head as his heaving faded, wiping his mouth on his arm and burying his face into the couch while he caught his breath. 

He didn't know what to do with this — this _care_. His parents had been barely worth the name; one of his earliest memories involved lying miserable and alone on a cot in the school nurse's office, because no one was around to answer her call and come pick him up after he got sick in class. He didn't want this bright comfort, the couch and the windows and the soft white t-shirt they'd dressed him in while he'd been unconscious. He wanted somewhere cool and dark and quiet. Somewhere no one could find him until he was strong enough to be Duke Crocker again, instead of this pathetic pile of sick. 

"I getcha, kitten," Gloria said softly. "I'll leave you be for now." She gave his neck a small squeeze before letting go. He heard her footsteps walking away, but didn't lift his head again until he heard the quiet conversation start up again in the other room. 

He swallowed down on something that might have been sick, but was probably a sob, and focused on his breathing. A tremor ran from the top of his head down his spine, and he curled up a little tighter on the couch. 

He'd fucked up. Being alone was so much worse.

* 

They left him there for what felt like ages, though Duke couldn't say for sure, too miserable to sit up and look for a clock. He lay there and breathed and threw up occasionally, and missed the weight of Gloria's hands.

When she returned she was all business and bluster, efficiently checking his pulse and clucking when it wasn't to her liking. She set a small box down on the arm of the couch by his head and got to work changing out the IV bag for a new one. 

"Lincoln finally found the Zofran," she said. "Pop one of those under your tongue now and we'll see about giving that water another try. Your friends'll be here soon, and I imagine you'd like to look a little more human before then." 

Duke made an extra effort to sit up at that, dragging the blanket, a fluffy afghan done in a geometric print, along with him. The chill from earlier was back and seemed to have settled into his bones for the long haul. The room temperature saline in the fresh IV bag wasn't helping. 

Gloria watched as he fought with the Zofran's blister pack, then pressed her hand to his head to recheck his temperature. "Fever's going down, looks like," she said, switching her hand to his cheek, still business-like. She didn't say a word when Duke automatically leaned into it, just let it linger there until he pulled away. "Hopefully that means this trouble's about run its course. If not and that Zofran doesn't hold, we're going to have to head to the hospital, creepy black goop and all. Body's not built to puke like that." 

Duke shuddered, letting the strange, not-quite-sweet pill dissolve as he pushed himself up a little higher. He made it nearly vertical this time, sitting cross-legged on the couch with the blanket piled in his lap, and felt like he needed to sleep for three days just to recover the energy it took. Gloria handed him the cup of water, and he held it in both hands like a toddler to take a sip. 

It was heaven to his mouth, nirvana in his throat. He just hoped his stomach wouldn't decide it was hell.

"Friends?" he asked, his voice still barely there. 

"Wuornos," Gloria said. "And the blonde cop. What's her name. Rafferty?" Duke stiffened. He did not need to see _Rebecca_ right now. "No," Gloria said, shaking her head. "That's the other one." 

"Parker?" Duke offered hopefully. 

"That's the one. Been retired too long. Would have sworn her name started with an R." She shrugged. "Anyway. Jordan called 'em for you. They'd've been here earlier, but between the fire at the Founder's Day ceremony yesterday and the dead kid in the ICU. . . ."

Duke tried another sip of water. It sounded like the troubles had gone nuts again. Of course Nathan and Audrey couldn't rush to his sick bed, dealing with all that. He wouldn't have wanted them to. And anyway, why should they? He wasn't any use to anyone like this. He wouldn't even be able to kill someone and end their trouble unless they ran themselves into his knife. 

Again. 

"Dead kid?" he asked, staring down into his cup. The Zofran was working so far, but he more than half expected that to change at any moment. 

"Tyler something. Paraplegic, post-car accident. Hear tell Lucassi can't make heads or tails of it, the quack." 

There was a Tyler on the other Duke's list. Something about a possession trouble. Duke clearly hadn't killed him, so maybe he hadn't taken out Kirk, either. He felt a tremble start in his arms and looked for somewhere to put the cup. 

Gloria took it. "You need the bucket, kitten?" 

"Nah." Duke sighed. "Just. Tired." 

"Should think so. Takes a lot out of you, puking up a whole driveway's worth of tar." She reached out, stopping just before she actually touched him, giving him a chance to pull away. When he didn't, she brushed the hair back from his face. "Alright if I clean this up for you?" 

Duke frowned, crossing his eyes a little to focus on the wisps hanging around his face. There were more of them than usual; his ponytail was probably a total mess. He imagined raising his arms up to fix it and was exhausted just thinking about it. He nodded. Gloria shifted, moving behind him. There was a soft tug at the back of his head, then the brush of his hair hitting his neck.

And then Gloria began gathering it all together to put it back up, and Duke thought he might melt again. Just, you know, in a good way, this time. 

It was a whole different experience than putting his own hair up. Gloria combed with her fingers while she gathered, instead of just tugging at it en masse, her hands careful now, slow instead of brusque. Duke closed his eyes, rocking slightly with each tug, waiting for his body to rebel, for the panic to come at being touched so intimately by someone he wasn't sleeping with. It didn't, though. He trusted her. 

Holy shit. 

"You fall asleep there, kiddo?" 

Gloria's hands were on his shoulders now, and he blinked his eyes open slowly and shook his head. The usual lock of bangs swung into his face, and Gloria clucked, exasperated. Duke found a small smile. 

"Thank you." 

"Nothing to it. Ben used to wear his hair like that, back in high school. Never let me touch it, though, the brat." 

"Ben?" 

"My son. He's not here now, don't worry. He's got a house all his own, these days, and a little boy. . . . I know every grandma thinks hers are the sweetest, smartest grandkids around, but that Aaron, let me tell you. . . ."

They went on like that for awhile, Gloria making small talk while Duke sipped his water and tried not to throw up. It was . . . nice. Peaceful. Bizarrely domestic. Duke was disappointed when the doorbell rang and Lincoln called back that Nathan and Audrey had arrived. 

The spell was broken. He had to be an adult again now. 

Gloria gave him a sharp look when he sighed and rolled his shoulders back, aligning his spine and sitting up straight the way he would during yoga practice. She didn't say anything though, not even when he tucked the arm with the IV under the blanket in his lap. He knew he wasn't fooling anyone. But he could at least make the effort. 

"Wow. You look like crap." 

Duke didn't roll his eyes, but only because he still wasn't certain of his stomach's stability. "Hello, Nathan. So nice to see you, too." 

Audrey rushed forward, barely giving Gloria time to get out of her way before she had Duke wrapped in a hug, her face pressed tight to the side of his neck. "Are you okay?" she asked, pulling back just far enough to look him over. "You're burning up. What happened to you?" She cupped his face with both hands, frowning as she looked into his eyes, then shot Gloria a look. 

"Burst capillaries," Gloria said, meeting Duke's questioning look with a shrug. "Happens sometimes when you throw up that hard. I know the red eyes looks dramatic, but it'll go away on its own." 

Audrey swallowed, looking uncertain even as she nodded. Duke wondered how bad it was. If it reminded her too much of the future Duke's full black gaze. "What happened?" she asked again. "Jordan said by the time the Guard got to the docks you were gone." 

"Camera went out, too," Nathan said, somehow managing to be both stoic and faintly concerned in one go. "Everyone was at Founder's Day, so no one saw a thing." 

Duke shrugged, trying for the same tone. He was still a bit hoarse, which helped. "Dunno how they got me. Chloroform I think." 

Gloria let out an offended noise. "Might as well have taken a rock to the head. You're never getting those memories back." 

Duke suppressed a shiver. Memory loss due to chloroform was nothing compared to his mysterious missing day. 

"Who grabbed you?" Audrey asked. "How'd you get away?" 

"I didn't," Duke admitted, looking down at his lap. He slid his free hand under the blanket and ran his fingers over the bulge of the IV in his arm, feeling the little tug and twinge as the needle shifted slightly. "Pretty sure they let me go." 

"Must not have wanted to deal with all the cleanup," Gloria said. 

Duke grimaced. "Sorry." 

"I worked with corpses my whole career, kitten. In Haven." 

Duke couldn't help a little smile at that. He thought he might be a little in love with this woman. "Still." 

"Who?" Nathan asked. "Did you get a look at them?" 

"Faces and names," Duke confirmed. "Sort of. Thugs were called 'Sinister' and 'Heavy'." Nathan rolled his eyes. Gloria snorted. Duke caught Audrey's eye before he continued. "The leader was William." 

Audrey frowned and shook her head. 

"William," Nathan said. " _The_ William?" 

"Seemed like." 

"Who's William?" Audrey asked, clearly getting impatient. Nathan shot Gloria a look, and she raised her hands. 

"I'll leave you kids to it. I got enough of this trouble nonsense the last two times around." She nodded to Duke. "Give a shout if you need anything." 

And then she was out the door. Duke watched her go, picking at the tape holding the IV in place. 

"William was one of the ones the other Duke warned us about," Nathan said, once Gloria was out of earshot. "The ones behind the door." 

"How'd he get out?" Audrey asked. 

"He said we opened it," Duke said, with a little shrug. "I don't remember it, but — well." 

"There's a lot you're not remembering right now," Nathan said. 

"Yeah." Duke pulled a good half the tape up in one sharp tug, managing not to wince as it took some hair and skin with it. The pain was a tiny, bright pinpoint against the background roar of the rest of his body. He swallowed, waiting for his stomach to rebel, but the Zofran continued to hold. "You could ask Jennifer, maybe. She's the one who could actually see the thing." 

Audrey and Nathan shared a glance. Duke's stomach rolled over. 

"Jennifer's missing too," Audrey said. "We were hoping she was with you." 

Duke nodded. "I haven't seen her." He curled forward to grab the bucket as he threw up yet again. 

Nathan hopped back. "Jesus!" 

"S'fine," Duke gasped between heaves. 

"It's not _fine_ , Duke, look at that crap!" 

Duke managed to shoot Nathan a look. He hoped it was withering, but suspected it fell a bit short. "Have, actually," he muttered. "Thanks." 

He had to get this back under control. He couldn't help Jennifer from a hospital bed. He closed his eyes, breathing carefully, and tried to convince his exhausted abs to take a break. 

"Duke," Audrey said softly. He felt her touch the blanket. "You're bleeding." 

"He knocked his IV loose." Duke opened his eyes to glare at Gloria as she came back in, but she stared him down. "Just couldn't help yourself, could you, kid. I knew you'd be a puller." 

Duke got to his feet on pure spite, flinging himself forward into a stagger that just missed knocking the bucket over. "It's fine. We need to find Jennifer. She went to the Herald, right?" 

" _Duke._ " Nathan caught him by the upper arm and Duke doubled over again. Gloria, more spry than she looked, managed to get the bucket under him just in time. "We're sure he's not being mind-controlled again?" 

Duke wanted to tell him off but couldn't, trapped as he was in another puke-gag-puke-more cycle. He couldn't breathe, every muscle in his body committed to ejecting his stomach's contents as fast as possible. Spots cluttered his vision, and his world narrowed to his aching lungs, his roiling stomach, and the hot coals of Nathan's hands on his arm. 

"Nathan, let him go." 

"Parker —" 

"You're making it worse, let him _go_." 

The hot coals vanished and Duke dropped, landing on his knees with his upper body folded over the bucket. He heaved in his first full breath in what felt like an eon and waited for the spinning to stop. 

An ember hit the back of his neck, just long enough to make him dry heave before vanishing again. 

"Nathan!" 

"You're right." Nathan's tone was stalled out halfway between fascination and horror. "If I touch him, he gets worse." 

"Oh goody," Duke said, still curled around his new best friend the puke bucket. "You've got a built in way to torture me now." 

" _No!_ " Horror won, apparently. "Duke, I'd never. . . . Not anymore." 

"You're all heart, Chuckles." Something cool and soft touched his neck this time, Gloria's hand, rubbing those tiny, soothing circles again. "Fever's back up too, looks like. I think the same thing happened last night. When Mike and Jordan brought him in, he was all but seizing. Stopped right about when they set him down and backed off." 

"Mike Gallagher?" Audrey asked. 

"Could be. Didn't ask. Was Guard, though." 

Duke lifted his head, but otherwise didn't try to move. All the progress he'd made in the last few hours was gone. Maybe he really did need a hospital. "The Guard. Jordan. They _helped_ me?" 

"Sure," Gloria said. "Once I got my shotgun." 

Nathan huffed. "Gloria!" 

"Relax. It was just a warning shot. Only keep it to scare away the racoons, anyway." 

"If he's Guard, then he's troubled," Audrey said. She crouched down next to Duke, hand hovering uncertainly over his arm. Duke braced as best he could, but when she laid it gently on his skin, it was as cool and soothing as Gloria's. Maybe even moreso. Duke stared at it, then looked up at her. 

"Duke's . . . allergic to troubled people now," Nathan said, not quite a statement. "How?" 

"William." Duke swallowed — an ordinary lump this time, thank god. "He said he was going to break my trouble." 

"Break —" Nathan said. "He can _do_ that?!" 

"Apparently." Duke leaned his arms against the bucket again, watching a drop of blood roll down his elbow. "And it sucks." Gloria got him another cup of water, and he took it gratefully. "He's after you, Audrey. He wants Mara. Asked me to pull her out of you." 

Audrey nodded, apparently unsurprised to learn that Mara was another of her personalities. Duke supposed after the first few, the novelty wore off. "Because you found me under Lexie." 

"I said 'no'." 

"And this is what you got for it." Audrey pulled him into a sideways hug this time, careful not to block his access to the bucket. 

"We know the trigger now," Nathan said. "So we can avoid it." 

"Not quite." Gloria bent down to start cleaning up the dislodged IV. "You weren't touching him when he first blew chunks and pulled this out, were you." She patted Duke on the cheek. "You know what that means, kiddo." 

Duke sighed. "I need better drugs." 

"Don't we all, kid. Don't we all."


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More throwing up in this chapter, fair warning. And all KINDS of handwaved medical details. . . .

Duke had had a vague hope that being brought in by the former Chief of Police and ME would get him, like, extra priority in the ER. But since the nurse who triaged him apparently wasn't troubled, they declared him stable enough to wait while they handled more emergent cases, and he found himself sprawled in an ugly plastic chair, cuddling his puke bucket, pretending he could relax enough to take a nap. 

Gloria headed off shortly after arriving, apparently to give Lucassi advice. Or possibly a hard time. Nathan hovered for awhile, hands all but fluttering in the air as he avoided touching Duke. Considering he wouldn't necessarily notice he did so until Duke started projectile vomiting again, Duke couldn't really blame him for that. Besides which, Duke was a sweaty, horrifying mess, with blood stains on his arm now to boot. He didn't much want to be touching _himself_ right now. 

Which made it extra confusing the way Audrey kept her hands tight around his. She'd started at Gloria's, helping him keep his balance as they headed for the cars, and kept it up in the Bronco, giving him an extra little squeeze when every bump and pothole turned him an exciting new shade of green. And once they'd gotten settled in in the ER waiting room after triage, she pulled his hand into her lap and refused to let go. Duke wasn't complaining; it was nice to have her hands to focus on instead of his own misery. He just wasn't sure why she was doing it. 

Maybe she thought if this was a trouble, her immunity would help. What was the opposite of an allergy? Audrey could be his antihistamine. At least until it came time to solve another trouble. It wasn't as though he could be of much use to her there anymore. Not if chasing the troubled person down risked making himself violently ill again. 

He really should have just — left. He'd been doomed the moment he pulled her from the water all those months ago, though. He couldn't leave her now, not even if it killed him. 

Nathan stopped midpace as his phone rang. He had a short, clipped conversation, then turned to Audrey. "That was Gloria. She wants to talk to us about what Lucassi found on Tyler." 

Audrey bit her lip. Duke carefully untangled his hand from hers. "Go ahead," he said. "I'm good here." 

Audrey tightened her grip. "I'm not leaving you alone." 

Duke gave her a little smile. "No one's going to snatch me from a hospital waiting room. Too many witnesses, for one thing." 

Audrey frowned at him. "That's not what I mean." 

"I'll be fine. I'm a big boy, Audrey." 

She looked at Nathan, still hesitating. Nathan had his concerned face on, but for once he had it aimed at Duke instead of her. "We'll be back as soon as we can," he said. 

Duke forced a grin. "I must really look like shit. You haven't looked that worried about me since Helena." 

Nathan scowled, and Duke felt like he was back on even footing. "Don't get kidnapped again." 

Duke finally got his hand back from Audrey and used it to give Nathan a jaunty salute. He kept it up until they'd both turned down the hall towards the morgue, then sagged back in his seat again. 

The waiting room was cold. He was still wearing just Lincoln's t-shirt over his jeans. 

He wished he was home. He wished — for the first time in a very long time — that "home" was a place with other people in it. 

"Crocker," a nurse called. Finally. Duke heaved himself to his feet, swallowing back on a fresh wave of nausea and dizziness, and followed him to an exam bed, clutching his bucket to his chest like a teddy-bear.

* 

IV anti-nausea medication was Duke's new favorite invention of the modern world. After an unfortunate run-in with a phlebotomist with clumsy arms and an unknown trouble, Duke was _finally_ starting to feel halfway human again. He didn't need much rehydrating thanks to Gloria's handiwork, so they just set him up with some nice drugs and a heated blanket and let him be. It was glorious and even almost relaxing — for about half an hour. Then he started to feel better enough to get restless. The ER was just one big room, and despite the plasticky curtains pulled up on either side of his bed, he still felt horribly exposed. Between that and all the questions still circling in his head, he was feeling even more of an urge to get up and get _out_ than he might otherwise. He found himself missing Jennifer fiercely. Last time he'd been stuck in a hospital bed, she'd been the one there to help. He wasn't cuffed to the bed this time, but with the IV and the pulse-ox tethering him while they decided if vomiting unidentifiable black gunk warranted surgery, he was pretty sure he could use her particular style of distraction.

Besides, it didn't seem like he was going to get any other company. He may have told Audrey he'd be alright here on his own, but he had at least expected her to check in after the morgue. Unless there was another body. Or some trouble emergency. Or a lead on Jennifer. Maybe it was better that they leave him here. Duke would only slow them down right now anyway.

He was getting morose. He needed to get the hell out of this bed. 

He made it to his feet without anyone paying him any real mind. They'd let him keep his pants when they'd asked him to change into a gown, so he only really had to deal with the pulse-oximeter, an automated blood pressure cuff, and the IV. Gloria was going to give him such hell for pulling that out again. He hesitated, picturing the disappointed look on her face, then a nurse poked her head around the curtain before he could get it out. He gave her his most charming smile. 

"Just needed the bathroom." 

The nurse smiled back. "That's a good sign! There's one just down the hall. Let me just. . . ." She trailed off, flipping through his chart. "Yeah, the doctor wants a urine sample. Hang on another minute and I'll get you a collection cup." 

"Sure thing." Duke kept the smile up until she'd disappeared again, then made quick work of the IV, pressing his thumb into the wound to staunch the bleeding as he reached for his discarded shirt on the end of the bed. It took some juggling to manage it all without bleeding all over the place again, but he got the gown off quickly enough. Who knew how long a "minute" would really be in here, and he had no intention of still being here when the nurse got back. 

"Planning to skip out on the bill?" 

Duke rolled his eyes and turned, a sarcastic line about insurance on his lips for Nathan, but the look on Audrey's face made him pause, shirt still in hand. "What?" he asked, looking down at his bare chest, half-expecting to see a fresh wound there, or maybe a dick drawn in sharpie. It was just his chest, though. 

"When did you get this?" Audrey asked, stepping forward and resting the tips of her fingers high on his chest, above his heart. Duke shot a look at Nathan, but he looked just as confused as Duke was. 

"Parker?" Nathan asked. Audrey glanced back. 

"You don't see it?" She turned back to Duke, tracing a shape with her fingers. Duke suppressed a shiver. Her hands still felt much better than they had any right to. "A handprint. Right here." 

Under his clavicle. 

"William," Duke said. "That's where he touched me. With the aether." 

"Aether," Audrey said, and Duke saw something flicker across her face. She pressed her fingers more firmly against his chest, an odd smile on her lips. Duke looked up at Nathan and saw him frowning back, though he couldn't have seen Audrey's expression. 

"Could that be what you've been throwing up?" Nathan asked, instead of commenting on Audrey feeling Duke up. "Like what came out of the other Duke's eyes?" 

What a horrible thought. Duke shifted back from Audrey's touch and finished pulling on his shirt. "William only used one ball of the stuff." 

Audrey turned away and started to pace. She hardly seemed to have noticed whatever had just happened. "Aether's what troubles are made of though, right? And the Crocker trouble doesn't erase them, it _collects_ them. Or it did, before whatever William did to you." She looked up at Duke, once again the picture of friendly concern. "William _broke_ your trouble, right? That's the word he used?" 

This just kept getting worse. "So — what? Now I'm _leaking?_ " He looked at Nathan again. "If I'm throwing up troubles, does that mean people are _getting_ them?" 

Nathan's thoughts seemed to be heading in the same direction. "Gloria." He darted through the curtains before Duke could say anything else, Audrey hot on his heels. Duke moved to follow, only to run into the nurse, holding the collection cup. 

"Sorry that took — sir, are you leaving?" 

Duke looked where Audrey and Nathan had disappeared around the corner. "I'm fine now," he said, spreading his arms. "See?" 

"You're not — sir, you came in with a fever of 102. You were throwing up something we've never seen before. You can't leave yet." 

"That's Haven for you," Duke said, trying to sidle past her. "There's always something new and different."

The nurse's expression closed down, and she planted herself in front of him. "Sir, I really need you to get back in your bed." 

"And I really need to _go_ ," Duke said, trying to step around her. He had a good foot on her, this shouldn't be so hard. 

"Everything okay, Martha?" An orderly who looked like he might be Dwight's much larger cousin came up beside the nurse. Duke held up his hands. 

"It's fine. Just a misunderstanding. Get me some AMA forms, it's cool. I can do this the official way. But I need to go." 

Martha shook her head. "Sir, I _really_ don't think —" 

"I'm not contagious," Duke said, despite the worry that had sent Nathan and Audrey hurrying back to Gloria. "I promise. Look, it was just a — a gas leak —" He cut himself off with a yelp, hopping backwards as the orderly reached for him and revealed a Guard tattoo on the inside of his arm. The room seemed to lag a second behind the movement. "Don't touch me." 

The orderly held up his own hands. "It's alright, sir. Just stay calm. No one's going to hurt you." 

The laugh that came out of Duke at that was just a little bit crazy. "Man, all you people want to _do_ is hurt me." 

The orderly scowled. Duke wondered if it was really possible that the guy didn't recognize him. He'd been on the Guard's Most Wanted list for ages, ever since his trouble activated. Sure, he'd been knocked off the top by Nathan after the Barn, but still. . . . 

Or was that just Jordan's particular faction? 

The room listed sharply to the side, and his skin prickled as sweat broke out across his body. He really needed to get out of here, before his body refused to get him anywhere at all. He held his smile in place with the ease of long practice, but he must have swayed or something, because both the nurse and the orderly were reaching for him now, and he couldn't get himself coordinated fast enough to dodge. 

The orderly's hand burned like a brand. Duke managed to suck in an instinctive breath at the pain before the heaving hit. He pitched forward, distantly registering Martha's cry of frustration and alarm. The orderly only tightened his grip, now holding Duke up as he gagged and choked. 

The black gunk seemed inexhaustible. He hoped desperately that they were wrong about it being aether, because if not, everyone in this hospital was screwed. Had been from the moment he'd come in, puke bucket in hand. It was too late now; he couldn't even warn Martha and her friend to get away from him, couldn't do anything but sag into the orderly's grip as the man lifted him back up onto the bed. Martha held an entirely inadequate little bin for him to puke into as the orderly got Duke situated on his side, and her hands were as brisk and competent as Gloria's though they lacked a certain soothing something. Her care was distant, somehow, detached. He was just a part of her frustrating day at work, her recalcitrant patient who couldn't stop throwing up on her. 

The orderly finally let go, and Duke sank exhausted into the sheets, panting for breath. He heard the orderly exchanging words with someone behind him, and though he was sure they were talking about him, that he needed to know what they were saying if he wanted to stay safe, he was too wiped out to follow the conversation. Being _picked up_ by a troubled man was too much, a step too far after everything he'd been dealing with over the last. . . .

He didn't know. He had no idea what time it was, what day. Between the barn, the missing time, and his broken trouble, he was entirely time-blind. He grabbed wildly for something solid, something he _knew_ and — missed. 

The room tilted again, the nurse's concerned face blurring. 

Sure. Passing out seemed like it was probably the best option right now, anyway.

*

He woke in motion, panicked, and lashed out. Hot hands grabbed him, his stomach leaped, and he passed out again.

*

The world had stilled the next time Duke woke. Someone still held his hand, but theirs were cool this time, not hot, and his stomach stayed where it was supposed to be. He was propped on his side again, and his throat ached fiercely. He could hear people talking nearby, but the urgency from earlier was gone, and he was content to lie there and drift.

It should have been terrifying, lying prone in an unknown location, surrounded by people, too weak to do more than breathe, but he'd apparently hit a whole new level of sick; even his paranoia had been exhausted. 

Or maybe it was the fact that he recognized the people talking. Though when Nathan and Dwight had gone from "uneasy truce" territory to "trust when incapacitated", Duke had no idea. 

"Lincoln's fine too," a third voice said, and Duke knew he was in trouble. Gloria was all but a stranger to him, but hearing her made parts of him relax he'd never known _could_. If she turned on him, if any of them did, he'd be absolutely screwed. "If that black stuff's aether, it's not active. We both ended up elbow deep in it." 

"There's an image I didn't need," Dwight said. "You did the autopsy on Simon Crocker back in the day, right? You find anything like this stuff?" 

"Nope. Lungs and belly full of seawater, just like you'd expect. What's happening to Duke is something new." 

There was a comforting thought. 

"Any word on Jennifer yet?" Nathan asked. 

"Nothing," Dwight said. "But we've got another body. Walter Donovan, found an hour ago. Not a mark on him." 

"Just like Tyler." That was Audrey, much closer than the others. Duke cracked his eyes open just enough to see her sitting next to his bed, his hand held loosely in hers though she was turned to face the others by the door. 

"Cloudy eyes and all," Gloria agreed. "That I have seen before, though I wasn't the one who worked the case. On the Colorado Kid." 

"Croatoan did something to my eyes," Dwight said. "Thought I was dead when he did, too." 

"And Duke's missing time," Audrey noted. "Just like the morning James was found." 

Duke shivered involuntarily, and Audrey turned sharply to face him. She smiled when she saw his eyes open, even as she let go of his hand. He immediately missed her, sliding his hand along the sheets a few inches as though to chase hers, but couldn't manage much more than that. 

"Hey," she said, voice soft and carefully light. "You're awake." 

"So people keep telling me." He flicked his eyes over to the crowd at the door. "Didn't wanna miss the party." 

Gloria reached down to whack him gently on the leg. "Scared the hell out of us there, kitten. Martha was about ready to call the CDC." 

"Really?" Duke frowned, but couldn't put much force into it. "She new?" 

Gloria shrugged. "You'd think, but no. She grew up around here. My daughter-in-law used to babysit her and everything." 

Well hell. Denial was a powerful — dangerous — thing. 

"Maybe we should," Nathan said. Duke's hand clenched against the sheets. 

"Are you kidding?" Dwight asked. "Don't tell the outside world, that's trouble rule number one!" 

"Charlotte Cross," Nathan said. "The woman the other Duke said could help solve the troubles. I looked her up. She works for the CDC." 

"So that's what you were doing on your dad's old computer," Audrey said. "Why not just contact her directly, though?" 

"Tried. Without direct evidence —" 

"From _me_." It took more effort than it ever should have, and left him a sweating, shaking wreck, but Duke managed to sit up. "I'm patient zero here, Nathan, that plan puts me in a cage." 

Nathan looked pained. "We don't have to put your name on it. We could just — say it came from a John Doe." He looked at Gloria and Dwight. "Right?" 

Dwight shrugged. Gloria shook her head. "I don't know, Nathan. I spent my career keeping the government out." 

"Here's an idea," Duke said. His voice was shaking almost as hard as his arms. "Maybe _don't_ go with the plan that makes me — and, oh yeah, you and Dwight and every other troubled person — into a guinea pig!" 

"Duke, hey." Audrey put her hand on his shoulder, pressing him back down onto the bed. "It's alright. We're not going to let anything else happen to you." Duke stared into her eyes, his pulse still racing. She believed what she was saying at least, but how could she even promise that? This was Haven. Anything could happen at any time. Even Audrey Parker couldn't promise to keep anyone completely safe. 

"It may be the only way," Nathan said softly. "We need Charlotte to end the troubles." He stared at Duke, expression and mix of apology and determination. "You're the one who said so, your future self. You must have thought it was worth the risk." 

" _Fuck_ that guy!" Duke hissed. "He showed up here, spouted a few enigmatic warnings, and _died_. Now people on his list are dying, Jennifer's missing, and I'm —" He broke off with a choked noise as his throat locked down. He was so tired. If he kept talking, if he tried to explain how messed up he really was, not just with this broken trouble but with _everything_ , he was going to lose it. And he could not afford to lose it. Freaking out, crying right now, would get him nothing but pity. 

And Duke couldn't stand pity. 

Judging by the looks he was getting from Dwight and Nathan, he hadn't stopped in time. He dropped his gaze into his lap and wrapped his hands over the back of his neck, and tried not to feel the weight of those stares. 

"We'll figure something else out," Audrey said, squeezing his shoulder. Duke nodded without looking up, and wished his stomach was stable enough for a scotch. Or five. Black out drunk sounded pretty good right now. 

"We'll uh. Give you a minute," Dwight said. Duke heard him and Nathan exchange a couple quiet words as they headed out the door. Audrey gave Duke's shoulder another squeeze and let her hand trail down his arm as she got up to follow. When Duke finally looked up again, Gloria was the only one left. 

"This isn't my first rodeo, kid. It's not even my third. I'll keep 'em in line." She set a small bottle of something that looked like watered down apple juice on the table by his bed. "Drink that, if you can. Your blood sugar's in the pits and your electrolytes are all out of whack." She reached over to brush his hair out of his face and when he didn't pull away, got a grip on his chin and shook it gently. "And _cry_ , you idiot. No one'll think less of you, and it'll make you feel better." 

Duke scoffed. Gloria let him go with a frustrated huff and headed out, grumbling about emotionally constipated men. 

And Duke was alone again.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first draft is DONE, y'all! In a way that basically requires this series be a trilogy. 
> 
> What have I done?

He didn't cry. He sat on his bed, staring at the blank expanse of wall across from him, and slowly drank the Pedialite or whatever it was that Gloria had left him. It helped; he felt steadier, less like he was going to shake apart or fall off the world, but it also woke his stomach up. He had no idea how long it had been since he'd last eaten — sitting up with Jennifer Monday night, probably. A day ago, at least, maybe more. Fuck, for all he knew he'd lost another six months in there somewhere. He wanted to believe someone would say if it'd been more than a day or two, but apparently throwing him to the government wolves was fair game, so who knew? 

William was right. He was just a tool. A broken one, at that. 

He was sinking, he knew, dropping down into the murky depths of his own head, and this time he couldn't even bring himself to try and shake himself out of it. A detached part of his brain charted up the indignities heaped on him, the shocks and injuries and betrayals that went back not even to the Barn, but to the beginning of the summer, to Geoff's death and Nathan's attack on the _Rouge_ thanks to that crazy music trouble. To saving a beautiful woman from drowning only to find out she was FBI. 

Even that hadn't bee new though, had it. Officer Agent Parker had been just his luck. Evi had conned him well before she'd signed up to work with the Rev. His own mother had seen him as nothing more than a meal ticket; his father a little medic, his serial murdering legacy. 

Duke had tried. He'd gone out into the world and _hunted_ for joy. For money and luck and love, and when those had all backfired, he'd looked for Enlightenment for awhile too. He might get something for a little while — he'd have given up years ago if he'd never won at all — but it all turned on him in the end. 

That was life, though. You lived, you got screwed, and you died. If you managed anything other than an ugly, stupid, lonely death, you counted yourself lucky. And if you were Duke, apparently, you might get shoved back in time to try — and die — all over again. 

He had no idea how long he sat there, strewing in his own thoughts. The bottle in his hand had gone dry as his throat, though, and really, that was the only kind of time that mattered, wasn't it. He was just considering getting up again — maybe he'd make it this time, go to the _Rouge_ and hole up again, or get in his truck and get the hell out that way — when the door opened and Jennifer swung in. Duke checked his wrist for cuffs, wondering if this was all some sort of deranged fever dream. Or the Barn, maybe, fucking with his head. 

"There you are!" Jennifer said, eyes mania-bright. "I've been looking everywhere!" 

"Yeah." Duke couldn't hold back a relieved grin. Seeing her shoved all the dreary crap in his head aside. He remembered how the other Duke had looked at her, like she was everything he'd ever wanted and never hoped to have. She unknotted things even Gloria's weird, brusque care hadn't touched. "Deja vu, huh?" 

Jennifer nodded distractedly, looking him over with narrowed eyes. "Are you okay? What happened to you?" 

Duke set the bottle aside, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. He had another IV to deal with, and EKG wires this time, which had apparently necessitated taking his pants, but he still hadn't graduated all the way to a catheter, thank god. "Long story," he said. "You?" He looked her over the same way she had him. "Audrey and Nathan said you went missing." 

Jennifer scoffed. "Of course they did. You can't trust them. That kid they found, Tyler? He was on your list, remember?" 

Duke nodded, frowning. He couldn't trust Audrey and Nathan? Couldn't trust them to what? When it came to trouble-busting, they were the only people anyone _could_ trust. When it came to anything else. . . . Well. There the jury was still out. 

"He died," he said. "I heard. Wasn't stabbed though, so hey! I probably didn't kill him." 

"You didn't," Jennifer said. "You didn't kill anyone. Remember what Tyler's trouble was? Possession." 

". . . You think I was possessed?" Duke flicked his eyes to the window and back, considering. It might explain some things. "Why would Tyler want Kirk dead, though?" 

"Not Tyler." Jennifer was practically vibrating, holding the door shut tight behind her. "The men from the Void. They're the ones that can use with troubles." 

Duke pictured the liquid black flakes peeling off the other Duke's eyes, summoned by the thing was inside Dave Teagues. Gloria had said something about the eyes, too. Jennifer was onto something, here. There was just one problem. 

"He wouldn't need Tyler's trouble to possess people. He already possessed Dave." 

Jennifer shook her head. "That's just Dave. Did you know he was adopted?" 

"He was?" Duke blinked. "That explains a lot. So, what, his birth family's trouble is to _get_ possessed?" 

"Maybe? Sure." Jennifer shrugged. "That's not the point. The point is, the man from the Void has Tyler's trouble. Which means he could be in anyone." 

This was bad. This was extremely bad. They'd assumed that Croatoan was under control because they had a handle on Dave. Which — in retrospect, probably hadn't been the best plan in the first place. Duke could kick himself. He'd just been sitting here while Jennifer, who'd only learned the troubles were a thing a few days ago, was finding clues to solve the latest crisis. 

He needed to get out of here. Getting up and moving was the best way to get past feeling like crap anyway, right? 

"There's more than one of them." Duke got carefully to his feet, still half expecting his stomach to rebel again. "Croatoan, he's the one who was in Dave. And William." 

" _William._ " For a moment, Jennifer's expression went dark. _Vicious_. Duke rocked back a step. He hadn't thought her face could look so cruel. She blinked, though, and the expression was gone, replaced again by worry and urgency. "We have to be careful," she said. "William and Croatoan hate each other. Who knows what would happen if someone got caught between them." 

"Yeah." Duke knew. They'd get their trouble 'broken' and spend far too much time doubled over a bucket. William wanted Audrey too; if she got caught between them, they'd probably do even worse. 

He started peeling off the little conductive stickers from the EKG. Jennifer moved to help, but stopped when he flinched back, looking hurt. Duke started to explain, but something stopped him, some nagging sense of unease. He turned his attention back to the stickers instead. "Okay, so we've got a rogue possession trouble. You think Croatoan's possessing Nathan?" 

"I don't know." Jennifer stared at his chest as he pulled his hospital gown down to get at the stickers. "I don't know him well enough to be able to tell." 

Duke thought back to how Nathan had been acting since the morning in the police station. The worried looks were — weird. But not totally unprecedented. Nathan had always been disconcertingly careful with Duke when things got really dire. The whole bit where he tested to see if he could really make Duke puke on command by touching him had been classic Nathan, though. And the plan to contact the CDC. . . .

It was reckless and shortsighted, totally dismissive of Duke's needs, and likely to put everyone in terrible danger. Nathan was willing to throw anyone he had to under the bus so long as Audrey was safe and he might get his sense of touch back. 

"Nathan's not possessed," Duke decided. "And Audrey's immune. I don't think we have to worry about them. "

Jennifer frowned harder. Duke gave her what he hoped was a reassuring smile, though with how many levels of shit he probably looked, he couldn't be sure it'd land properly. 

"My hospital-escape needs haven't changed much," he said instead, and she gave him a confused head tilt. "Pants?" 

"Ah!" She turned to search the room while he finished disconnecting himself from the bed and machines and things, then returned triumphant with his clothes. Or his pants, at least. Lincoln's t-shirt apparently hadn't survived Duke's last puke attack in the ER. 

Well. At least his ass wouldn't be hanging in the wind. 

"Where are we going?" Jennifer asked, once his pants were on and he was checking the door to see if the coast was clear. Duke grimaced. 

"Good question." He looked back at her. "Where have you been hiding for the last — how long has it been?" 

"The Teagues' research room. Some sort of creature came after me while I was at the newspaper offices. Vincent kept it busy while I hid, and then we tried to figure out whose trouble it must be. That's when I remembered Tyler's trouble and knew I had to come warn you." 

She didn't answer his whole question, Duke noticed. "Jennifer, I'm serious. I need to know if I lost time again. How long has it been since you left the station?" 

Jennifer shrugged. "I don't know. A few hours." 

Duke turned away from the door to stare at her. It'd been more than that. He _knew_ it had. It'd been longer than that even before William grabbed him, and there'd been at least one night since then. 

Hadn't there? 

"What?" Jennifer asked. "How long do you think it's been?" 

"At least a day." 

Jennifer shook her head. "It's still Tuesday, Duke." 

God help him, he couldn't even argue. Not when she said it so firmly.

"Did Audrey and Nathan tell you it'd been longer?" she asked gently. Pityingly. 

He hated pity. 

Duke straightened back up and flung himself into the hall. "There's a warehouse I use along the coast. No one knows about it but me and a few . . . select clients. We'll go there." 

He glanced back at her as they made their way through the mostly empty hallway, and when he found her watching him in return, flashed her a small smile. He didn't know what her angle was here, but he was sure she wasn't telling him the whole truth. He wasn't sure if anyone had, not since he'd jumped into the barn. 

Not even his own future self. 

Which meant he needed to start getting some real answers soon, or he was _really screwed_.

*

Sneaking out of a small regional hospital like Haven's wasn't anything like sneaking out of the one in Boston. Everyone working in this place knew each other, and most knew him too, at least by reputation. Even once he'd found a scrub top to change into instead of his hospital gown, there was no getting around the fact that he was clearly a patient. He fielded the sidelong looks with broad, almost aggressive smiles and swaggered through like he owned the place, though he knew he probably still looked like crap warmed over. Most people just nodded back and went about their business, but he got a few sympathetic glances. People, he assumed, who'd seen him go down in the ER, or who'd helped strip him and wire him up while he'd been unconscious.

The idea made him twitch. He tried not to think about it. 

His whole escape was made complete by having to steal a car in the parking lot. Jennifer had apparently walked to the hospital from the Herald — kind of impressive, really — and Duke's truck was probably still where he'd left it at the marina Tuesday morning. Which may or may not have been this morning. 

He tried not to think about that, either. 

Jennifer wasn't exactly excited about driving a stolen car, so even with the lingering chance of Duke passing out, he still found himself behind the wheel, aiming the little silver sedan at the edge of town. 

"I'd've thought a girl who flashed a guy for me the day I met her would be a little braver," he said, trying to ease the tension in the car. Jennifer laughed a half-second too late. Duke shot a glance at her sideways, but she didn't look back and didn't say anything else until they were safely tucked away in his safehouse up the coast. 

"So," she said finally. "You have a spooky, out of the way lair. You really are a criminal." 

"I am," Duke agreed, leading the way down the hall to the old breakroom he'd turned into a living space. He felt — odd now that he was up and moving again. Hollowed out. Like he'd gone a couple days in a row without eating — which may even have been true — but deeper. In his bones, not just his stomach. "But one with a heart of gold, remember?" 

"Yeah." Jennifer didn't look reassured. If anything, she seemed — annoyed. Like she'd been hoping for some hardened mafia guy instead of a conman and a thief. Duke added that to his growing pile of 'something isn't right'. 

Not that anything had been right since he'd jumped into the Barn. 

"Alright," he said, managing to sit on the dusty little couch instead of collapse into it. "So. This Void guy. Croatoan." 

Jennifer rolled her eyes. "That's what the white people called him. It's actually an old tribal name for the people who lived in the area before the colonists came." Duke frowned, and Jennifer waved her hand dismissively. "But if that's the name that works for you, that's the one we'll use. He lives in the Void, but he's not _of_ the Void. He comes from the same world as Mara and the people who built the Barn. He was banished to the Void because his ideas were too — scary for them. Too forward thinking. Like that scientist who was executed for saying the Earth wasn't the center of the universe." 

"Galileo?" Duke asked. Was Galileo executed? He couldn't remember. Jennifer nodded absently, and Duke frowned. "How do you know all this?" 

Jennifer paused in her pacing and looked at him. Duke ducked his chin and raised his eyebrows. She shook her head and started pacing again. "It was in an old journal the Teagues had. A trader met the man a few hundred years ago. He's been here before." 

"Why didn't Vince or Dave ever mention that?" Duke asked, then sighed at himself. "Nevermind, stupid question." 

"Yes." Jennifer cracked a small smile. "Well. As I was saying. Croatoan wanted to use aether to make his world _better_. He'd discovered that it could heal injuries and cure diseases, but his people feared its power and forbade him from working with it. Then his daughter got sick. He smuggled the aether to her to cure her. When the others caught him, they condemned his work and banished him to the Void." She stopped pacing again, peering out through the gaps in the boards Duke had put on the windows when he first got the place to make it look abandoned. "They never told him what they'd done to his daughter. They might have condemned her too for all he knew. So he found his way here, to this world, and tried to use the aether to find a way back." 

"And — gave people horrible, killer superpowers," Duke said. "I mean, I get it, but it kind of seems like his people might've had a point about how dangerous aether is." 

" _No!_ " Jennifer whirled on him, her face a mask of rage. "It doesn't work the same way over there as it does here! Why do you think Audrey's immune?" Duke leaned back as she brandished a finger in his face, not willing to risk her trouble setting off another puke attack. "This world is closer to the Void, and full of — weak spots. Everything here has been touched by aether, that's why it has such a strong effect. It can't do anything like this over there. Not in its pure form." 

"That's why he had to make the troubles," Duke guessed. "To make the aether stronger." 

"That was Mara's idea." Jennifer smiled. "She was always clever. She figured out that aether could be shaped. Transformed by the people it inhabits. Every new generation changed the aether a little more. . . . They just had to be patient." She looked at him. It wasn't a nice look. "And find a way to collect it." 

Duke swallowed. "The Crocker curse." 

"That was a stroke of true genius. Think of it like — adding flavors to a stewpot. Separate, each one tastes just fine, but put them all together and something magical happens." 

Duke shivered. He never should have brought her here. Not to Haven in the first place, and definitely not to this safehouse. That was hostage situation 101, wasn't it? Never let them take you to a second location?

He hadn't even noticed when he became a hostage. 

"What did you do to Jennifer?" he asked.

The thing wearing Jennifer's face tilted her head at him and smirked. "Got a little too enthusiastic, huh?" 

"I spent the last few weeks — relatively — dealing with a skinwalker." Duke leaned back in his seat, resting his arms casually over the back of the couch. He had a pistol stuck back there somewhere. He hadn't been able to check it in months, even before the Barn's time-skip, but hopefully just brandishing it would buy him space, and he wouldn't have to risk a misfire. "Plus, you know, there's my naturally suspicious nature." 

Croatoan nodded thoughtfully. "That's handy. I picked your ancestor well. I have no idea how they managed to breed in your _cowardice_ , though." 

Duke showed his teeth. "Because I'm not a killing machine?" 

"Because you're so _squeamish_." Croatoan looked, ironically, disgusted at the thought. "My god, the way you sobbed over that Bowers man, I had to wipe your memory just to shut you up." 

Duke's stomach clenched in a way that had nothing to do with his broken trouble. He really had killed Kirk. He'd never _liked_ the guy, the few times he'd met him, but that didn't mean he'd wanted him dead. He'd actually never wanted anyone to die, for all that he'd always known he had to be ready to kill. He'd always thought that made him ruthless. 

He was pretty sure now that just meant he'd always been scared. 

"Doesn't matter now," Duke said. "William beat you to the punch. The Crocker curse is no more." 

Croatoan scoffed. "Don't be ridiculous. William's a buffoon. I crafted your trouble myself; it is not so easily broken." 

Duke made a show of considering that. "Yeah, no, I'm pretty sure it is. I couldn't kill a troubled person now if I wanted to." 

"Really." Croatoan didn't look convinced. "Well, let's take a look." 

He was on top of Duke before he could react. Jennifer's tiny frame somehow pinned Duke in place as Croatoan grabbed his face with both hands. 

It was like being dipped into a volcano. Duke's whole face caught fire in a blast of black and violent red, an instant of pure, unadulterated agony before the world blessedly switched off like a light.

*

It could have been seconds or years. Duke was on the floor when he woke, his limbs tangled beneath him. Croatoan sat on the couch where Duke had been, playing with what looked like black slime. He still wore Jennifer's body, and she still wore the same outfit she'd been wearing when he passed out, and the light out the boarded up windows didn't seem to have changed, so he decided he couldn't have been out for long.

If he survived this, he was going to start wearing a goddamn watch. 

"I admit William's adjustment was reasonably clever," Croatoan said, not looking at Duke. Duke tried to answer and managed only an inarticulate whine. "Forcing you to purge the aether in your system when you encounter an outside source. . . . I imagine you've left quite the trail of it across town. He probably thought he was overcooking it first too." He did look at Duke now. Duke attempted to glare back, but he suspected it came out a little pathetic. "He's certainly managed to overcook _you_." 

Duke twitched, barely managing to free one hand. 'Overcooked' was right. He felt like a sack of rice pudding, like his muscles were breaking down into so much slop. Croatoan was using a trouble to squat in an already troubled body, and who knew how many other troubles he'd managed to collect on top of those. This was so much worse than Nathan's little finger test. 

"It is . . . processed, I'll give you that," Croatoan was saying, holding up the handful of slime. "Much more so than I'd prefer. Mara put _effort_ into crafting these troubles, and look at the mess William's made of them. It's still _potent_ , though. Can't you feel it?" He held the goop over Duke's face, letting a long strand drip down. Duke tried to scramble away, but only managed to flop himself over onto his back. "It may just be concentrated enough to affect even people from my world. The troubles we'll be able to make from this. . . ." He smiled to himself, revelling in the thought, and let the aether go. Duke let out a frankly embarrassing squeal of terror, but it hovered instead of falling, a wobbling, amorphous blob unconcerned with the force of gravity. Croatoan twisted his wrist, and the blob swirled up into the darkness at the ceiling. Duke squinted upward, watching it go. 

Was it him, or did the whole ceiling look like it was moving? Just how much aether was in this place now? 

Croatoan crouched down over him and Duke's breathing went ragged, his exhausted body doing its best to panic at the thought of those hands touching him again. "Thanks for the safehouse," Croatoan said, smiling. The expression should have been cute; Jennifer had a lovely smile. Duke wondered if she was awake in there. He wished he could apologize. "Terribly kind of you. Between your hidey-holes and Dave's, we should have plenty of space to work without getting found out. Oh, and that list!" He reached into Jennifer's pocket and pulled out a packet of paper. Duke's eyes went wide. He flung his hand up in a desperate attempt to grab it, but Croatoan simply leaned back out of his way. "Ah-ah. Finders keepers. I tell you, it would have taken me ages to find dear Tyler and his trouble without it." He tucked the list away and leaned down into Duke's space. "I think I'll have to keep you." 

He patted Duke on the cheek. Duke writhed, aether leaking from the corners of his mouth. It swirled away as Croatoan pulled his hand back, circling up to join the rest on the ceiling. "Don't worry, dear boy. I'll be back soon. And then the fun can _really_ start." 

He stood and stepped over Duke, not even bothering to tie him up. He just left him where he lay, a shivering wreck on the dusty floor.


	6. Chapter 6

For a long time, all Duke did was breathe. 

Breath control was vital to body control. By connecting to and controlling his breath, Duke could do anything. He knew this. He could bend his body into a pretzel while standing on his hands. He could get up off this dirty floor. 

He just had to breathe. 

The sunlight had shifted a few degrees across the floor by the time he found the strength to roll over and push himself up. It was the best indicator of the passage of time he'd managed to find in — ages. He still couldn't say how _much_ time had passed — he hadn't adjusted internally to the switch from short-days-getting-shorter to long-days-getting-longer yet. But it was a non-zero amount. A fairly significant amount. Long enough for him to start worrying about Croatoan coming back again soon. 

His breath hitched and his elbows folded, sending him back to the floor. 

Right. Don't think about that yet. Don't rush. Breath control. Body control. Emotional control. 

He could do this. 

He wobbled to his feet and straight into a wall. The room bent and warped and dimmed around him. He shut his eyes to block it out and focussed on his breath. 

In through the nose, out through the mouth. Inhale, stand up straight. Exhale, step forward. 

He wasn't a prisoner here. Croatoan had underestimated him. This was _his_ safehouse. He knew it inside and out. He found a change of clothes, some bottled water, and a box of protein bars. The food and water stayed down if he ate slowly enough, and just that much was enough to leave him feeling more settled again. More _human_. He pulled on his old denim shirt and tied back his hair. He checked behind the couch for the pistol he'd stashed there, but couldn't find it, and lost several moments beating back a blast of panic. He'd faced down violent gangs and drug dealers in his day. Organized crime and law enforcement alike. All he'd ever needed in this world were his wits and a weapon. He didn't have a gun, alright, but there were other weapons available if he kept his eyes open. He could do this. 

Just as soon as he figured out what "this" was. 

Duke had the endurance of a geriatric sloth right now, so food, water, and a spare phone were all he could manage in one go. He sank down onto the couch again, weighing the phone in one hand, and considered the wisdom of trying to escape. 

He did _not_ want to be here when Croatoan got back. That was a no-brainer. He was pretty sure Croatoan's current plan for him amounted to "pretty new aether fountain", and while that meant Croatoan probably wouldn't kill him outright, Duke was betting he'd end up wishing he would. The problem was, the warehouse was miles from town, and even if Croatoan hadn't taken the car with him when he left — who knew if the guy could even drive — Duke had left it about half a mile down the road to avoid drawing suspicion to the safehouse itself. It might as well be in Guam for all the good that did him right now. 

There was no way around it. He needed help. 

Audrey's phone rang straight to voicemail, and Duke cursed his way through a quick message before hanging up. She knew better than to ignore his calls on purpose — he hoped, especially after the Helena debacle — which meant she was likely in deep somewhere herself. With not one but _two_ Void dicks running around with plans for her former self, Duke couldn't be surprised. 

If they'd gotten to her, if they'd hurt her in _any_ way, he'd kill them. He had no idea _how_ , but he could cross that bridge when he got there. 

He nibbled his way through half a protein bar as he weighed his other options. Croatoan had a possession trouble now. There was no reason to think he'd stay in Jennifer, especially since Duke knew he was in there. Audrey was immune, but no one else would be. He'd have to be careful, make completely sure that whoever he called was exactly who he thought they were. He took a steadying breath and dialed. 

"What the hell, Duke?" Nathan said. No hello, no nothing, just yelling at Duke. 

That was a good sign. 

"What was the name of the goose?" Duke asked. 

Nathan was silent for a long moment. Duke fisted his hand in his hair and fought the urge to hang up. 

"What." 

"The goose. Outside Mr. Argent's fishing shack. What did we name it?" 

" _Why?_ " 

"For once in your life, Nathan, just humor me." 

Nathan let out a long sigh. "Drake-mor." 

"The whole thing." 

Nathan groaned and lowered his voice. He wasn't alone, then. "Drake-mor the Magnificent, Lord of Darkness, Destroyer of Bagels — I don't remember the rest." 

It was definitely Nathan. Duke sagged. "That's plenty, thanks." 

"Then I repeat: what the _hell_ , Duke? Where are you? What happened with Jennifer? Why did you _steal a car?_ " 

"In trouble, it's a long story, and — it seemed like a good idea at the time." 

"Duke —" 

"You can lecture me on the intricacies of property law later, Nathan. Look — Jennifer said she got attacked at the Herald, so I took her to one of my safehouses. Only — it turns out she's not Jennifer." 

"Croatoan," Nathan said. 

Duke frowned. "Yeah. How'd you know?" 

"Turns out Dave's been having — visions or something. Of what Croatoan's been up to. I think he's still connected somehow." 

"Puppetmaster." Duke pressed his fingers to his forehead. "The list called Tyler's trouble 'possession', but Croatoan said 'puppetmaster'. What if he's still in Dave, but controlling Jennifer from a distance?" 

". . . Makes sense," Nathan said slowly. "Jennifer went missing after she went to the Herald." 

"We let her walk right into the lion's den," Duke said. "But — hang on. Vince has Dave locked up, right? How'd he get to Tyler?" 

"Vince is missing time, too. Shorter chunks than you are, but more of them." 

"So Croatoan could be anyone. Doing any _thing_. And no one will even remember he was there." 

"No. Not anyone. This is a trouble. Troubles have _rules_. What else did the list say?" 

Duke shook his head. "I didn't exactly study it, Nate. Ask Audrey. Croatoan has a copy, but she took the original." 

Nathan's voice went steely. "I can't. Audrey's gone." 

Duke was surprised he managed to keep his protein bar down. "Gone _where?_ " 

"To William. To learn about using aether." 

"Are you kidding me?!" Duke stood sharply, only to collapse back again when the room whirled around him. His hand tightened so hard on the phone the plastic creaked. "Why the hell would she do that?"

"To fix _you_ , Duke. You scared the hell out of her." 

Duke swallowed against something thick in his throat. People didn't take those kinds of risks. Not for him. Not since Evi ran out into the street in front of the police station and got herself killed. "She shouldn't have done that." 

"Not arguing." 

Duke snorted. 

"Where are you?" Nathan asked. "Are you hurt?" 

"Old fishing supply off Route One, about halfway up the coast towards Kick'Em Jenny Neck. I'm — okay. Right now, anyway. Still sick, but I'm pretty sure I'm not actively dying at the moment, so I'm calling it a win." 

"Croatoan?" 

"Gone. Coming back." Duke rubbed his forehead. "Apparently William's little tweak means I'm spitting up, like, super-aether. Pretty sure Croatoan's planning to milk me for all I'm worth, especially if he can get Mara back and making troubles again." 

"Shit." 

"You're a master of brevity as always, Nate." Something rustled through the trees outside the safehouse, and Duke froze, holding his breath. Nathan called his name a few times and probably checked to see if the call disconnected, before Duke breathed again. "I don't know how long I have," he said, voice low. "I can't —" He closed his eyes, his voice sticking. "I can't get out of this on my own, Nate. I need your help." 

"Yeah," Nathan said on a sigh. Duke heard someone talking in the background. "Dwight's got the coordinates for your phone." Duke bit back a curse, reminding himself that this time, he _wanted_ to be found. 

"Getting the full SWAT treatment, huh? Fancy." 

"Duke." Nathan sounded resigned. Duke swallowed. 

"I don't like that tone, Nate." 

There was a crackle of static on the line. 

"We can't pull you out yet, Duke." It was Dwight. Duke dropped his head into his free hand. "We need all the intel we can get on Croatoan, and so far, you're the best source we've got." 

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. . . . "What happened to the kinder, gentler police force?" Duke managed, instead of just letting out the entire litany of fucks running through his head. 

"We will get you out as soon as we can, alright? I'll head up the team watching the safehouse myself. Keep this line open, mute the speaker if you can."

Duke took a deep breath, wincing when it wobbled in his throat. "Don't do this to me, man." He hated the pleading that leaked into his tone. He'd never been very good at feeling trapped. 

"We will get you out of there the _minute_ things go south, Duke. I promise."

Another breath, still unsteady. "I swear to god, Sasquatch, if this gets me killed, I _will_ find a way to haunt your ass."

"Wouldn’t expect anything less, man."

Duke finally got a stranglehold on his breathing, all too aware of the open microphone by his face. "Am I on speaker?"

"Not yet."

"Good." His burner phone was too basic to automatically update the date and time. "What day is it?"

He heard Dwight shift, and when he spoke, his voice was low. "It’s Wednesday evening. You and Jennifer left the hospital this afternoon. You’ve been in back in Haven for just short of a week."

Duke could kiss Dwight. He’d gotten why Duke needed to ask immediately, and gave him all the information he could. "You’d better still be you, man."

"Yeah," Dwight said, a certain wry humor in his tone. "You too. You’re going on speaker now."

Duke sighed, lowering the phone. It took a bit of hunting, but he soon had the volume turned all the way down. He set the phone on the floor and slid it under the couch, where it wouldn’t easily be seen or stepped on, but wouldn't end up too muffled to be useful as a bug. He hoped the battery held out. He hoped Croatoan didn't take out Dwight and his whole team before they could make good on that promise to get him out. 

His life, his _freedom_ was in the hands of the Chief of Police. 

He was definitely going to be sick again. 

He lay back on the couch as best he could — it wasn't a long couch — and tried to breathe. It was a strange feeling, wanting to run and not being able to stand all at the same time. His body ached. That hadn't gone away in the days since his encounter with William, though it kept getting drowned out by his stomach. Gloria would probably press her hands to his face and cluck about his continuing fever. He draped his arm across his forehead and tried to decide if it felt unusually warm. He was pretty sure you weren't supposed to be able to gauge your own temperature that way, though. 

He was tired. He felt like he'd been locked into high gear for — months, really. Since figuring out the Hunter meteor shower at least. He was used to more downtime than this. He was a cheetah, not a workhorse. Built for short, high energy bursts. The quick turnover, negotiations at gunpoint, then out to sea, where no one and nothing could touch him until he chose to find land again. 

He needed _real rest_. What he had was a holding pattern. He was hyperaware of the open microphone beneath him, of all the cops who could be on the other end, listening for any change in his situation. He closed his eyes and focussed on keeping his breathing even, on not jumping at every rustle and creak from the woods outside. Croatoan could return at any moment. He had to be ready. 

Somehow, against all odds, he fell asleep.

There was a sound like a depth charge in his head, a sudden shock that rocked his skull and woke him with all the subtlety of a cannon blast. The sky outside the boarded up windows had turned a deep, bloody red. Duke could only make it out in blurry flashes, barely able to keep his eyes cracked open. 

He couldn't move. Something was sitting on his chest, pressing him down into the couch. He couldn't breathe. He thought for a wild moment that it was the meteor storm, that everything with the Barn and the other Duke had been some kind of fever dream. The glow through the window was Haven burning, the weight on his chest the meteors themselves. It was the end of the world. 

He wondered how much it would hurt. 

"You ruined them." 

"I know. It's a setback. But we'll make more. That's the fun part anyway, right?" 

Duke woke the rest of the way, or at least enough to realize the red light was sunset, the weight on his chest a person. Someone with honey-blond hair, pulled back into a thick bun. He used what little air he could get to say her name. 

"Audrey." 

She tilted her head at him and smirked. "No." 

"You see?" the other voice said. "I told you I'd get her back." 

Duke let his eyes fall shut again with a faint groan. He'd have preferred the meteors. 

Fingers on his chest, skin to skin, tracing a shape beneath his collarbone. "I worked hard on these, William. And you _melted_ them." 

"I had to. You have no idea what that monster had planned." 

Mara hummed low under her breath. Duke felt her fingernails dig into his skin, like a cat sharpening her claws. "Don't I, though." Duke cracked his eyes open again, long enough to see her look over her shoulder towards the blurred shape that had to be William. There was no mistaking her for Audrey now. Audrey had never looked at anyone with that callous contempt. "Why don't you go see about opening us a thinny." 

"But I —" 

"Run along, William." She opened her hand, the one not currently trying to dig a hole through Duke's chest, and a swirl of liquid darkness spilled down from the ceiling. "Take some of your new aether with you. That should help you bust through Mom's locks." 

Duke squinted and watched Willaim open and close his mouth a few times, then capituate and storm off, the swirl of aether trailing after. He refocussed on the woman on his chest again. 

"Mara." 

The distant, haughty expression melted from her face, and when she looked at Duke, she once more looked like his best friend. " _Duke_." Her nails stopped digging into his chest; she slid her hand up to cup his jaw instead. "Are you okay?" 

Duke could only stare at her for a long moment. The switch had been so smooth. He had no idea what to believe. "Who are you?" 

She bit her lip, her eyes glimmering in the dim light of the safehouse. "Audrey," she said. "I — I think. Mostly. Mara's here too, but — she's like Lexie. Only louder." 

Duke nodded. That sounded like the truth to him — or just dangerous and creepy enough to not be a reassuring lie. He hoped Nathan had heard that. "Audrey," he said, managing to get one hand free. She grabbed it in hers and pressed it to her chest. He pushed against her. Her knees were digging into his ribs. "Hard to breathe." 

Audrey looked down, cursed, and scrambled off him, falling to the floor with a thunk that made him wince in sympathy. He hoped Nathan _hadn't_ heard that. He rolled onto his side and carefully pushed himself up, moving as fast as his sore stomach would allow. He finally made it to sitting, his head in his hands, swallowing as the room swayed. Audrey sat down next to him, close enough their legs touched, knee to hip. He looked her over carefully, taking in the paleness of her skin, the tension around her eyes. She studied him right back; he could only guess at what she saw. They both spoke at the same time. 

"Are you alright?" 

They both laughed. Audrey reached up to push the hair out of Duke's face, and he held himself carefully still, absurdly worried about spooking her. 

"I'm not the one whose body William messed with." 

"No," Duke agreed. "He just went after your mind." 

Audrey frowned, her lips pursed, as she tucked his hair behind his ear, then let her fingers trace their way down his neck until her hand rested on his shoulder. 

"Seems like everyone does that." She looked away, her hand dropping into her lap. "The Barn tried to turn me into Lexie, and William wants to turn me back into Mara." 

"And I made you be Audrey." Duke stared down at his own hands, thinking back to that strange scene in the Barn. He still didn't know how he'd done it. He'd just looked from Lexie's wry grin and complete lack of recognition to the crushing disappointment on Nathan's face and — started talking. About whatever metaphysical bullshit came to mind. 

_"Do you believe in reincarnation, Lexie? Past lives? Altered states of self?"_

_"This some kind of pick-up line, Blackbeard? Maybe you should stick with 'what's your sign'."_

"No." Audrey grabbed his hand again, holding on tight. Duke had assumed on the way to the hospital that she did that to try and make him feel better. Now he wondered if maybe it made her feel better, too. "No, you _let me_ be Audrey. William, the Barn, even Nathan, they wouldn't have taken no for an answer. But you. . . ."

Duke shook his head. "I wasn't being altruistic, Audrey. I would have hated if you'd stayed Lexie." 

"You hated that I was going into the Barn, too. But you did your best to keep Nathan from stopping me." 

Duke pulled his hand away. "I didn't. I could have —" 

Audrey grabbed it back again, holding on with both of hers now. " _No_ , Duke. Don't do that. Don't sell yourself short." She twisted in her seat to face him, her face only inches from his, and gave him that _look_ , the one that wanted to bridge the gap, that asked without words if it was okay to kiss him. 

They'd tried this before. In the hotel in Colorado. It hadn't worked then, and she and Nathan hadn't even been together yet. 

She wasn't Audrey. 

He looked away, down at their clasped hands, and reminded himself of the open phone line beneath him. Mara thought she could play him, use Audrey against him? He could play that game, too. 

"Croatoan's coming back," he said, careful to sound regretful. Disappointed. He gently pulled his hand from hers one more time. "He said he wants to 'keep' me." 

"He can't." She said it so firmly, so _viciously_ , Duke's heart broke. It was the kind of protective passion Audrey would have used, the kind that was still so familiar from his murky, scattered memories of Lucy. He wondered how much of that strength had been Mara all along. "You're _no one's_ to keep, Duke." 

"Trust me, Audrey." Her name tasted bitter on his tongue. "I agree with you. But . . . I'm not exactly fighting fit right now." Even as he said it, he tried to gauge its truth. He ached, but the room wasn't swimming. Getting actual sleep, even if he was pretty sure he hadn't had much of it, seemed to have helped a lot. If he timed it right, he might be able to get out. Into the woods around the safehouse, even if not actually _away_. 

"I know," she said. "I can see it now, exactly what William did to you. Mara knows so much about the aether." She touched that spot on his chest again, where Audrey had said the handprint was, and grimaced. "It's grotesque." She glanced up at his face, and whatever she saw there made her drop her hand again. "I think his heart was in the right place. Sort of. He wants to stop Croatoan as much as we do. If Croatoan wins, William loses his playground. He knew Croatoan wanted you, so . . . he changed you." 

"Yeah," Duke said, pulling away again. He self-consciously buttoned up his shirt, much higher than he ever usually did. He wished her touch burned instead of soothed. That there was some outward sign that she wasn't who she was pretending to be. "Well. That went _great_ , obviously. Now instead of trouble storage, I'm an aether refinery." He looked up at the ceiling. It was too dark out now to make out the whirling aether, though he knew it must still be there. He debated what to say next. If Mara hadn't figured it out, he'd be giving her valuable intel. But he wanted to make sure Dwight and Nathan knew it. Depending on what Gloria had done cleaning up after him, Croatoan's plans could put her and Lincoln into the line of fire too. He didn't think he could stand it if something happened to them, just for being kind to him. "Croatoan thinks Mara can use it," he said finally. "To make supercharged troubles." 

"He's right." Duke held back a flinch. "That aether's more powerful than the stuff William showed me. It's . . . concentrated somehow." She looked at him with an attempt at a smile. "Good thing I've got Mara under control, huh?" 

Dwight and Nathan needed to know this part, too. That Audrey wasn't Audrey anymore. That Mara could pretend. "Do you?" he asked, careful not to look too sure. 

Her face fell. "I don't know. I hope so. It's — it's like we talked about yesterday when we went for coffee. How Lexie still being here makes me feel less like _me_. Mara. . . ." She stood, pacing a little back and forth. Duke heard a strange rushing noise from the ceiling, as though the aether was shifting to follow her. "She's so _angry_ , Duke. At her world, at her people, at her _mother_. I can feel it, ever since I let William wake me — _her_ — up. It's like this . . . poison. Running through me. I've only been feeling it for a few hours, but already I kind of want to —" She stopped abruptly, staring at her hands, her expression hardening as Duke watched. He had no idea who was actually in charge, if anyone was at all. He could see a battle being fought in her expression. Mara and Audrey might have had the same face, but they wore it as differently as night and day. 

There was a rustle outside, and the sound of a door slamming. A single set of footsteps down the hall. Duke tensed in his seat, breath coming fast. It couldn't be the cavalry; Dwight would never come in alone. He found himself hoping it was William. He seemed suddenly like a much smaller threat, for all that he was the one who'd actually _hurt_ Duke. 

Jennifer — or at least her body — rounded the corner, silhouetted in the twilight. The woman — Audrey or Mara or maybe a strange amalgamation of them both — stared at her. 

Croatoan spread his arms. "Dove!" 

Mara beamed. "Daddy!" 

Duke bolted.


	7. Chapter 7

He didn't expect to get far. 

He didn't expect much of anything. Expectations required thought, and Duke hadn't thought. He'd just — run. 

That was the thing Nathan and Audrey had never properly understood about him, the thing that made the future Duke so terribly strange; when it came to fight or flight, Duke's first instinct had always been flight. Or maybe Nathan did get that, he'd just never been able to accept it. 

Duke's safehouses weren't quite like the _Rouge_. His boat he'd gutted and rebuilt himself, full of hiding places and passages. His houses were more open and straightforward. This one had a main door, a couple hallways, a handful of offices, and a warehouse, a small space not much bigger than a two-car garage, designed for recreational fishing gear. Still, Duke had gotten it not long after he'd come back to town a few years ago, and he knew it extremely well. If he had to, he could lose them in the crowded warehouse — assuming Croatoan hadn't found some locator trouble or something — and make it to the hidden back door before they could catch up again. 

Except they didn't follow him. He heard Croatoan laugh — a chilling sound, so close to Jennifer's, which Duke had just started learning but already loved — and an almost metallic rushing noise like water through old pipes, but no footsteps other than his own. He glanced back, and watched the shadows shift in a strange, liquid manner. 

Aether. They'd sent the aether after him. 

Just the thought sent a pulse of nausea through him. The rushing noise came closer, and he threw himself to the side, rebounding off one of the warehouse racks and tearing a gash in his palm when it caught on the rusted-off edge of the metal shelves. 

So, hey. If he survived this, he could look forward to dying slowly of tetanus instead. 

The aether dodged with him, swirling out and around him like a current, before slamming back in against his chest. 

Nothing happened. 

It was like being buffeted by a small wave at the beach. The aether had enough force to rock him back a step, but that was all. It didn't hurt. It wasn't hot or cold, or dizzying. It hardly felt like anything at all. 

The aether swirled around, gathering speed for another attack. Duke walked right through it. Waves could be easy enough to break if you were ready for them. He even dropped his hand, letting it trail through the thin stream as he went. It moved like mercury, clinging to his skin in little beads, but shook off easily enough once he was through. 

The aether than came from him couldn't affect him. He hoped that meant it couldn't affect anyone at all, but he knew better than to believe it. Both Croatoan and Mara had remarked on its potential power. It must've been more like the people whose troubles affected the world around them, but were left alone themselves. This aether _was_ his trouble now, so he was immune. Which meant it didn't belong to Croatoan or Mara or William. It belonged to _him_. 

Not that he had the least idea what to do with it. 

He'd worry about that later. Croatoan and Mara would realize the aether couldn't contain him soon enough and come after him. He needed to get out, find Nathan. Come back with backup and a _plan_. The aether started moving again, rushing back towards the office with the couch. Duke raised a hand, thinking for a moment that he might try to call it back — then dropped it and headed for the back door again. He could always cough up more once he was free. 

He heard footsteps in the hall and broke into a run again, hurrying through the camouflaged door. He was glad he'd kept the thing oiled enough while he was in town that it didn't creak or groan now, and he was able to get it open and shut quickly and silently. He set off through the trees, trying to keep a hold on his increasingly ragged breathing. His limited endurance was starting to run out again. He staggered downhill towards the water, picking up speed as he went, though the visibility wasn't great; it was well past sunset now, the sky the deep blue of late twilight, the trees blurring together into one looming, dark mass. He'd put just a little more distance between himself and the safehouse, just run a little bit further, then he could find a spot to lie low — 

Someone grabbed him around the waist, someone with arms like steel pipes. Duke struggled, and whoever it was let him go with a sharp curse. Duke staggered away only to be grabbed again, this time by the arm. A hand came up to slap down over his mouth, though Duke had already managed to swallow his own startled shout. 

"Easy, Duke," someone was saying. "It's me. It's us. You're okay." 

Duke stared at the bear of a silhouette in front of him, wondering how Dwight had managed to grab him without setting off his trouble. The hand over his mouth was bare, too, pressing skin to skin, and Duke's stomach wasn't so much as rumbling. He flicked his eyes to the side and saw a sheepish grin in the dim light. Stan, one of Haven's untroubled finest. Naturally. Duke raised an eyebrow at him, and Stan pulled his hand back with an awkward chuckle. 

"Sorry, Duke. Dwight said no one was supposed to try to touch you but me or Rafferty." 

Duke shot Dwight another look. "And then broke his own rule." 

Dwight shrugged. "You were pretty much about to run into me. I'm just glad I took precautions." 

Duke squinted at him, noting how the man's hands didn't reflect nearly as much light as his face did. "Gloves. Right. Makes sense." 

"And full-length sleeves, and a turtleneck," Dwight agreed. "Might've added a balaklava if I'd known you were going to flail like that, though. Near broke my nose. Then we'd _both_ have been sorry." 

"No shit." Duke shrugged out of Stan's grip on his arm, forcing himself to stay upright and not, say, lean against a tree for support. No rest for the wicked and all that. He could collapse again when all this was _done_. "You still got ears inside?" 

Dwight shook his head. "Call just cut out. We were about to come in when you came out." 

Duke nodded, wiping at his forehead. He was sweating again, though it wasn't exactly warm out with the sun down. There was someone missing. "Where's Nathan? No way would he stay at the station with Audrey AWOL." 

Dwight shook his head. "Of course not. He's flanking along the road with Rafferty and Jordan." 

Duke blinked. He could not have heard that right. "Jordan." 

"She volunteered. Apparently she wants revenge on the people who created the troubles more than she wants it on you." 

Duke nodded, still feeling at least a half-step behind. Not that that was at all new and different, these days. "Huh. Alright then." 

"Hey Duke," Stan said. "You're bleeding." 

Duke looked down, wincing as the gash on his hand made itself known again. "Yeah. Been having kind of a rough night." 

Dwight's radio crackled to life as Stan pulled a little travel pack of tissues from his pocket. The volume was turned down low, but Duke could still hear the impatience in Nathan's voice clearly enough. "We moving in yet, Chief?" 

Dwight rolled his eyes. "Negative, Nathan. We've got Duke. We'll keep eyes on the house and regroup by the cruisers." 

" _Regroup._ " Duke went rigid at the voice, turning slowly. William peeled off one of the trees, customary smirk clearly visible even in the dim light. " _Awesome_ plan. I can see how you all are the crack team that brought down the Barn." 

Duke's jaw clenched, his hands curling into fists. Dwight brought him up short with a hand on his arm. 

"Don't make us gag you, too, William." 

William threw up his — handcuffed — hands. "Alright, fine. Don't listen to the guy with a plan to actually _stop_ Croatoan. I'm sure that'll go great for you." 

Duke grit his teeth. "Why the fuck should we listen to anything you have to say?" 

"Because, genius, Croatoan sucks for _everybody_. Look, I'll keep it real simple, so you locusts can understand." He pointed towards the safehouse. "Croatoan _bad_." He pressed his hand to his chest. "Not Croatoan, good! Or, you know, willing to declare a truce." 

Dwight crossed his arms over his chest. "In exchange for what?" 

William grinned. "I get to keep Mara." 

Duke felt sick in a way an entire day of puking aether couldn't touch. "She's not a _thing_." 

William groaned. "Whatever, man, you know what I mean. No trying to bring your precious _Audrey_ back again. Mara stays." 

"No deal." Dwight answered before Duke could, turning to head up the hill. "Let's go. Nathan's waiting." 

And wouldn't for long. Duke huffed and followed, waving off Stan's offer to help when his feet slid on the moldering leaves. 

"Fine!" William said, raising his voice a little. "How about a demonstration then?" 

The shadows around Duke moved with a shuddering, insect sound, and before he could react properly, Heavy was standing in front of him, reaching for his throat. 

The world went black. Duke couldn't see, couldn't hear, couldn't _breathe_. His mouth, nose, eyes, and ears were full of leaking aether. Heavy's hand was a collar of molten glass, gripping and _burning_ but not squeezing. Duke had only the vaguest sense of his body in space, of his hands grabbing for Heavy's wrist in a desperate bid to make him let go. 

He should have known better. He should have let go again immediately, flinched from the contact the way he would the burner of a hot stove. Instead, his hand locked _on_ , clamping down aground Heavy's beer-bottle of a wrist despite the searing heat, and squeezed. 

And then Duke was on the ground, hands and knees digging into the muck, aether flowing from his very pores. He heard Stan making panicked, choking noises; Dwight demanding to know what was going on, what had just happened; and William. . . .

William was laughing. 

"You see?" he crowed. "I told you I was doing you a favor!"

*

Duke didn't have the luxury of refusing Stan's assistance a second time. He never would have made it up the hill to the road alone, and Dwight was giving him a wide berth, even with his protective layers on.

Considering that Duke had apparently just _melted a giant_ by touching him, Duke couldn't blame the man. 

He picked up what had happened in snatches from Stan's stunned babble. William's thug had appeared out of nowhere and strangled Duke — that bit he remembered all too well — and Duke had started bleeding black. "Like an ebola victim!" Stan said, which made Duke reassess his views on the man's bravery. As far as he knew, Stan was still among the trouble deniers, or had been ten minutes ago. And now he was all but carrying someone that, for all he knew, could give him a virulent, hemorrhagic plague. 

"Then — you grabbed him! With your hand, your cut hand, and he _dissolved_. Arm-first. Like — like your blood just — broke him apart, like it was _acid_ —" 

There was no fear of Duke's blood now, at least. Not the actual red stuff, anyway. He could still feel aether dripping from his nose, but the cut on his hand had stopped bleeding somewhere along the line, its edges red and swollen. Like it'd been cauterized. 

It wasn't reassuring, no. 

The trees fell away eventually, and someone took Duke's other arm, taking some of his weight off poor Stan. Duke glanced over blearily and nodded to Rebecca. 

"Hey," he croaked. "Thanks." 

Rebecca offered him a shrug and an awkward smile in return. 

"Wow. You look like absolute shit." Jordan sounded way too cheerful about that as Rebecca and Stan got Duke situated on what turned out to be the tailgate of the Bronco. Stan pushed his little packet of tissues into Duke's uninjured hand before backing off. Duke appreciated the sentiment, though he wasn't sure what good kleenex would do in the face of an aether-nosebleed. Still, he gamely pressed one to his face as he squinted up at Jordan. 

"You're just jealous I'm more goth than you are now." 

Jordan snorted, then covered it with a cough and a glare. Duke smiled faintly. 

"Know you're not here for me or anything," he said, once Stan and Rebecca had moved away. "But — thanks." 

Jordan shrugged, folding her arms over her chest. "Heard you can't touch troubled people anymore without . . . " She nodded to the aether coating Duke's shirt and chest. 

"Yeah," Duke said. "No more Crocker curse for me." 

Jordan cut him a scathing look. "I know a little something about not being able to touch people." The anger in her tone and expression didn't match her words. Duke got the feeling she was mad at herself for even saying them. "If you want to — talk or something. Let me know." 

"Huh." Duke pulled the tissue from his nose. The aether clung to the paper in little beads without soaking in. "Yeah. That might be cool. Thanks." 

Jordan nodded. "This doesn't mean I like you." 

"Wouldn't dream of it." 

Nathan came over and Jordan made herself scarce. Apparently her sort-of truce didn't extend to the guy who killed the Barn. Duke was very surprised she'd offered it to him. Not that he thought it meant she'd forgiven him for shooting her. 

He hadn't really forgiven himself, either, for all that he couldn't quite bring himself to regret it. 

"You alright?" Nathan asked. 

"Yeah." Duke raised the tissue back to his nose. "Karma's a bitch." 

Nathan frowned, looking like he wanted to argue, but let the moment go. "Dwight told me what happened." 

"I melted Heavy." 

Nathan nodded slowly. "Gather William wants you to melt Croatoan." 

Duke shook his head, sending droplets of aether flying. One hit Nathan in the hand and clung there. Duke wondered how long it would take Nathan to notice it. "Not happening," he said, dragging his eyes up to meet Nathan's. "Not while he's still in Jennifer." 

"Or Dave," Nathan agreed. "We'll figure something else out." 

Dwight walked up, radio in hand. "No movement in the safehouse. We've got William secured in the cruiser — I think. Looked put out to be getting locked in, anyway. I don't trust that guy as far as I could throw him, but. Hell, man, that was one hell of convincing demonstration." 

Duke snorted, then gagged and coughed a wad of aether onto the pavement. "Yeah. That's one way to put it." 

"So — what? Instead of getting superstrength when you're bled on, now bleeding on us is how you absorb a trouble?" 

Duke frowned, then leaned over the edge of the tailgate to cough up more aether. "No," he said, wiping at his nose and mouth again. "No, this was — different. The aether before was all . . . stomach. And it'd _stop_ when the person let go. I'm still. . . ."

"Gooey," Nathan offered. 

"Like a first grader during flu season," said Dwight. 

"Yeah." Duke closed his eyes and let himself sway for a moment. "I don't think Heavy was troubled." He looked up at them again. "I think he _was_ a trouble." 

Nathan looked away, presumably towards the cruiser holding William. "William's trouble?" 

"Would explain why he was working for him," Dwight mused. "And how he just appeared like that." 

"Duke's blood," Nathan said slowly, "can _melt troubles_." 

Duke started to swallow, then thought better of it and coughed again. God only knew what would happen if he swallowed post-nasal aether. "Already melted the ones inside me, apparently. So maybe I can get Croatoan out of Jennifer after all. Dave, too." He held up his injured hand. "Hopefully without any worse than a couple burns." 

Dwight shook his head. "You could barely move after taking out Heavy, man. And we both saw you in the hospital today. It's definitely doing worse to you than a burn." 

Duke sighed. "I remember." He wasn't super excited about having to move even now, but he forced himself to stand up from his slump on the tailgate. "And if you've got a better plan, I'm all ears. Not really the self-sacrificing sort here." 

Dwight and Nathan exchanged a glance. "You, uh, kind of are, actually," Dwight said. 

"S'weird," said Nathan. 

"So that's a no on another plan, then." Duke grimaced and shoved his crumpled, aether-laden tissue into his pocket. "Guess I'm going in." 

Dwight put out his hand, stopping just short of actually touching Duke even with his gloves on. "No. Croatoan's still linked to Dave, right? So if you manage to kick him out of Jennifer here, he'll just retreat into him, and we'll lose our only advantage. We've only got one shot at this, we've got to make it count." 

"So, what, you want to bring Dave here?" Duke frowned. "That warehouse is full of aether, which Croatoan knows better than anyone how to control. It's suicide." 

"You were going in," Nathan said. 

"Yeah, well." Duke shrugged. "Aether and I've got kind of an agreement, now." 

That netted him a couple blank stares. Duke didn't bother trying to explain any further. 

"We draw them out," Dwight decided. "Get them to meet us on our own turf." 

"How?" asked Nathan. 

"Basic tactics," Dwight said. "We've got what they want."

"William," said Nathan.

Duke sighed. "And me."

*

"This is a rotten plan." Gloria took a swig from her bottle and offered it to Duke. "Not saying I have a better one or anything. Just that this one stinks."

"Yeah." Duke took the bottle and weighed it in his hand. Gin, a nice brand. Not top shelf, but more than decent. He handed it back without drinking any. "I've eaten, like, half a protein bar in two days." 

"Yeah, yeah." Gloria took the bottle back and took another swig. "Gin settles _my_ stomach." 

Duke smiled. It was just the two of them at the moment, tucked away in the Chief's office. It still felt weird to see Dwight's things in here instead of Nathan's or his dad's. Duke lifted his hand, hesitated a moment, then rested it gingerly on Gloria's knee. She immediately put her own down on top of it, threading their fingers together and giving him a squeeze, careful of the bandage she'd wrapped around it. 

"You doing alright, kiddo?" she asked. "You know, considering?" 

"Considering." That smile turned into a grimace. "I feel like I got run over by Nathan's truck. And then he backed it up to run me over again. Twice." 

Gloria watched him with a scrutinizing expression while she sipped her gin again. "That a yes or a no, then?" 

Duke laughed. Gloria gave his hand another shake and squeeze. 

"I'm serious now," she said. "Whatever you've got going on in there, it's not sustainable." She lifted his hand, turning it over to show the thick padding on the bandage across his palm. "This isn't just an upset stomach and a fever anymore. You have any idea how hot something needs to be to cauterize a wound? People aren't meant to generate that kind of heat. It's not doing good things to your system." 

"I know," Duke said. "Why do you think I asked Dwight to get you?" 

"I'm a _coroner_ , Duke." 

"You took care of me." Duke shrugged. "You're the only one who ever has." 

Gloria's face crumbled. "Oh kitten." She tugged him into a tight, sideways hug. "That's pathetic." 

The door to the office opened. Gloria let Duke go as Nathan came in. 

"They're coming." Nathan looked Duke over and scowled. "Thought you were getting cleaned up." 

Duke looked down at himself and shrugged. "Your spare shirt's your _uniform_ shirt." 

"So?" 

"I don't wear cop clothes, Nathan." 

Nathan narrowed his eyes at him, then stepped back out into the bullpen. Duke sighed and levered himself to his feet. 

"Do me a favor," Gloria said, brushing him down and straightening his shirt without seeming any regard for the still-wet aether stains covering him, though she'd somehow managed to avoid getting any on herself when she'd hugged him. "When you've got to bleed, _don't_ just cut across your palm like they do on TV, alright? You've already fucked over one hand today." 

"Lucky for me I'm a lefty," Duke said, trying for a smile. He wasn't looking forward to having to bleed again at all. 

"You're going to be okay." It was more of an order than a reassurance. "I hate breaking in a new dealer." 

"You haven't bought anything from me in — at least a year." 

Gloria gave him a long, exasperated look and patted him on the cheek. "You're lucky you're cute. Now, go out there and show that creep who's boss." 

"Yes'm." 

William was handcuffed to the table in the center of the bullpen, in what Duke usually thought of as _his_ seat, looking bored. Dwight and Nathan flanked the table on either side of him, armed with tasers, while Jordan hovered a little ways back, tucked into the shadows. Vince and Dave were set up in Nathan and Audrey's old office with Stan, Duke knew, Dave under sedation thanks to Gloria, to make sure he didn't accidentally leak any of the plan to Croatoan. Duke was just debating whether or not he was meant to take center stage in all this when the door to the main entrance hall swung open and Mara stepped in. 

"Well isn't this cute," she said. "Plankton playing at heroes." 

Nathan flinched. Duke spared him a quick glance, then looked back at Mara. "Where's your dad?" 

Mara shrugged. "Parking the car. We've got other errands to run when this is over." 

"Hi honey." William waved his cuffed hand. "Thought we agreed you'd warn me before the in-laws came to town." 

"What can I say?" Mara shrugged with an impish smirk. "I'm a daddy's girl." 

"There's no deal without Croatoan," Dwight said. Nathan didn't seem capable of getting his voice under control, in the face of Mara in all her nasty glory. "I want to see that Jennifer Mason is alive and unharmed." 

Mara rolled her eyes. "Relax, the brat's fine. Just . . . riding in the backseat. And anyway, there's already 'no deal'. I am going to _take_ whatever I like." She swung her gaze to Duke, looking him up and down with a smirk. "And I like the moo-cow." She crooked her finger. The aether on Duke's shirt pulled away with a faint sucking sound before swirling to her, leaving the cloth clean and dry. "Come on then, Bessie. Let's go." 

Duke leaned against the table, deliberately casual for all that seeing that look on Audrey's features made his chest ache. "I'm good here, thanks." 

Mara sighed. "Don't make this difficult." She grinned. "Or maybe do, actually. That could be fun." 

"Audrey," Nathan said, finally finding his voice. "Audrey, fight this. I know you're in there." 

"She's not," Mara said, swinging that feral grin in his direction. "I ate her." She looked Nathan over, her eyes lighting up, then flicked her finger in his direction. Nathan sucked in a breath, eyes wide, and clutched his hand to his chest. 

The same hand Duke had accidentally hit with aether. 

"Okay!" Duke stood quickly. He didn't know what she just did, but he would _not_ let her try it again. "I'll go with you, just leave them alone." 

"You really aren't getting it, are you." Mara shook her head. "This is not a negotiation. You're already _mine_." 

" _Duke_ ," Nathan said, low and urgent. Duke shot a look at him sideways, loathe to tear his eyes off the immediate threat. Nathan stared back, brows pulled down low and intent, until Duke met his gaze. Then he cut them sideways towards Mara. 

Duke twitched his chin side to side. He had no idea what Nathan was trying to say. 

Nathan flicked his gaze back and forth again and jerked his chin down a fraction. Duke shook his head again. Nathan's jaw went tight, desperation in his eyes, though Duke was pretty sure most people in the room couldn't see it. 

"Oh for fucksake," Mara snapped. "Just _say_ it, Cheekbones. Your boyfriend here clearly isn't getting it." 

_"Take a picture already, Cheekbones. Before your boyfriend here gets jealous."_

Lexie. That was _Lexie_. Duke shot another glance at Nathan, who jerked his chin again, more swallow than nod. You had to be fluent in Wuornos to pick up what he was trying to say, and while Duke was certainly proficient by now, no one was more fluent than. . . .

Than Audrey. 

Duke looked back at — he wasn't sure. At a strange amalgamation of Audrey and Lexie and Mara, all tangled up together. Which was what she'd been since coming out of the Barn, wasn't it. She'd told him that herself, more than once. He just hadn't been listening. 

"I'll go," he said again, swallowing when his voice cracked in the middle. "I'll go with you." 

"Duke," Dwight said, sharp and cautious. "This isn't part of the plan." 

"I know." Duke moved forward slowly, into the no-man's land between the table and the door. "I'm improvising." He raised his hands, perfect picture of surrender. If Audrey was pretending and Nathan keeping her cover, Duke wasn't about to blow it now. 

"There's a good cow." The voice and mouth were all Mara, but now that he was looking, Duke was sure he could see Audrey around her eyes. He hoped he wasn't misinterpreting. That this wasn't just wishful thinking. But — he trusted her. 

. . . He was pretty sure he did, anyway. 

"What about William?" Nathan asked, entirely too calm. He was definitely in on this. Whatever Audrey — or Audrey-and-Mara — had done, it must have somehow clued him in. 

The look Mara gave William was distant and haughty. "I don't need him anymore." She tilted her head as William choked and sputtered, looking at the door to the office where the Teagues sat. "I will take Dave, though. You can handle that, right, Cheekbones?" 

Dwight's protests joined William's. Jordan had her glove off, looking like she wanted to take someone out, but didn't have a good target handy. Audrey and Nathan were immune; everyone else was either on her side or not useful as a hostage. "She did something to him," she hissed instead. Dwight nodded, pulling his taser out as Nathan headed for the office door. 

"Stop!" he shouted. "Nathan, you're not thinking straight. Don't make me shoot you!" 

"Stand down, Sasquatch," Audrey said. Dwight's eyes went wide, flicking from her to Duke, his finger still tight on the trigger. Duke shot him a tiny nod and a shrug. Apparently Dwight trusted him, too, because he slowly dropped his taser again. 

"What the _hell_ , Dwight?!" Jordan hissed, grabbing for the weapon. Dwight held her off, the layers he'd put on to protect Duke keeping her from getting him with her trouble. 

Nathan had gone into the office where Vince and Dave sat without even looking back. 

"Nathan," Vince said from inside. "What the devil —" 

There was a dull thud and a curse. Duke winced in sympathy. If he'd gotten this wrong, he'd have a _lot_ of people to answer to. Assuming he lived long enough to do it. 

Nathan came back out of the office, still looking much too calm, dragging Dave behind him. Dave was all but deadweight, only just starting to stir. Dwight shot another wild look at Duke, clearly dealing with the same doubts Duke himself had. Duke swallowed, then nodded at him again. 

"Mara," William said, pulling at the chain holding him to the table. "Sweetheart. Hey. Alright, I get it. Your dad's important to you. Nothing wrong with that. Tell you what, we'll get a beer together. Do a guy's night. I can win him over!" 

Mara ignored him, waving Nathan along ahead of her. Duke took up the rear, feeling like he might be sick again. He checked his pocket, palming his knife. 

If he was wrong. If Mara really had whammied Nathan. If "Cheekbones" was just a name Lexie and Mara both decided suited him. . . .

Duke had no idea what he would do. 

They went through the vestibule and out onto the street, Mara directing them into the park next door. There Croatoan stood, still wearing Jennifer like an ill-fitting suit. Duke opened his knife, carrying it low, trying to decide the best way to do this without ruining both his hands. 

"Dove," Croatoan greeted, all warmth and sunshine. Mara smiled back. "You took your time." 

"Sorry, Dad." Mara — Duke couldn't see Audrey in her anymore, which made him start to sweat again — rolled her eyes and shrugged. "The amoebas needed convincing." 

Croatoan hummed, narrowing his eyes at Nathan. Duke made sure to have the knife out of his sightline when he turned that searching gaze on him. "So I heard. They can be _difficult_ , can't they. So afraid of pain. Ah well." He clapped his hands and rubbed them together. "Where should we start then? Perhaps . . . flaying!" 

Dave squirmed in Nathan's grip, coming fully awake with a gasp. "What's happening? Vincent? What's going on?!" Nathan adjusted his grip, settling Dave on his feet without letting go, and shot one last glance at Duke. Duke tightened his grip on his knife and gave him the smallest nod he could. 

This wasn't meant to happen in the open like this. They'd have to move _fast_. Which meant he'd need to cut deep. 

Gloria was going to kill him. 

Nathan swung Dave around and _shoved_ , sending him careening into Croatoan. Mara — no, this was _Audrey_ , beyond all doubt — threw her hands up, sending a thin, solid rope of aether around Croatoan and Dave both, binding them together. Duke grit his teeth and dragged his knife through his right forearm, just under the elbow where the IVs had gone in. The wound bled fast, pouring down his arm, but didn't spurt, so he was pretty sure it was just a vein, not an artery. He smeared the blood as best he could over both his arms and grabbed onto Jennifer and Dave, seeking bare skin wherever he could. 

He'd run out of metaphors for this. It was _hot_ and it _hurt_. 

Jennifer bucked. Dave screamed. Liquid black and misty green filled the air. 

Duke's knees buckled, and all three of them went down in a messy tangle. Duke smelled something burning and understood distantly that it was him, that he needed to let go, but he couldn't attach that thought to an action. Couldn't work out how to make himself move. 

It was hot. 

And it hurt. 

And then it — and everything else — stopped.


	8. Chapter 8

"Oh my god. Oh my god! Is he dead? Tell me he's not dead!" 

"Vincent! What the hell is going on?!" 

"Bleeding's stopped." 

"Don't touch him!" 

"Duke. Can you hear me?" 

"Will someone please tell me if he's dead?!" 

Hands, small and soft. "He's alive. Just out cold." 

"Cold, nothing. He's burning up. Get those ice packs over here!" 

A distant wail. "Ambulance is on its way." 

"Good. I feel terrible." 

"Not for _you_ , Dave!" 

"Then call another one!" 

"Duke. Come on, man. Show us you're in there." 

His mouth tasted like ash. The rest of his body was blessedly quiet. Or maybe no longer there at all. 

"fin'ly get it" he murmured. Fingers brushed his forehead. 

"That's it, Duke. What do you get?" 

"why he wanted to die" 

Silence. He let himself drift. 

"Shit." 

"Duke?" 

"Dammit, kid! Don't you dare!" 

"Got the ice packs!" 

_COLD_

Duke's body slammed back online and he arched with a grunt, grass and gravel dragging against over-sensitive skin. He felt dizzy and swollen, his head throbbing in time to the beat of his heart, which raced in his chest. He wanted to crawl out of his own skin and throw himself into the ocean, but those hands were still there, holding him down. 

"Easy there, kitten. Gotta get your temp back down so that idiot brain of yours doesn't boil." 

Gloria. Duke collapsed back, trying to remember how to breathe. If Gloria was here, he'd be okay. 

"Ohgodohgodohgod. Please don't let his brain boil. I was starting to really like his brain!" 

And that was Jennifer, unless Croatoan had become a much better actor. Duke managed, with considerable effort, to crack one eye open. 

"it worked"

Bright eyes and a shaky smile, those soft hands smoothing his hair from his face. Audrey, 100% pure Audrey Parker, accept no substitutes. Her eyes were wet. "Yeah Duke. It worked. Croatoan's gone." 

She bit her lip, but Duke still heard the unspoken end of that sentence. 

_For now._

The sound of sirens reached a crescendo, then cut out, making Nathan's "Ambulance is here," a little redundant. He was kneeling by Duke's head, his face red, his hands doing that fluttering thing again. Duke tried for a smile. By the noises Nathan and Audrey made, he _really_ didn't succeed. 

"trusted you guys" he murmured, giving up and letting his eyes fall shut again. It was too hard to breathe and see at the same time. He couldn't feel the ice packs anymore, just the smothering, strangling heat. And Audrey's hand, smooth and cool as marble. 

"Duke?" she said softly. 

"'sweird" he told her. "don' trust anybody" 

She let out a small noise, not quite a laugh. "Liar." 

Rushing feet. Too many voices. Hands all over him now, rolling him over, lifting him up. 

Audrey kept her hand on him the whole time.

*

Duke decided not to sneak out of the hospital this time. Not that he probably could if he'd wanted to; it took enough energy to just sit up and talk to people. And there was always at least one person there to talk to.

His friends, it seemed, had also decided he wasn't going to sneak out of the hospital this time. 

The first night — that he remembered, anyway, someone had thought to put a clock by his bed that listed not just the time, but the date as well, so he knew he'd managed to miss one — it was Gloria. She made a show of it, wearing a white lab coat and performing all the routine tests herself any time a nurse came by to check on him. He watched her do it without protest, leaning in ever so slightly whenever she let her hand rest on his bare skin. 

"Can't fool me," he told her. "I know you're retired." 

Gloria clucked and shook her head. "Not anymore, kitten. Lucassi skipped town." 

"Fuck." Duke let out a dry huff, the closest thing he had to a laugh at the moment. "Seriously?" 

"Apparently 'no known cause of death' was the last straw. I'm officially back on the job." She patted his arm absently. "Tomorrow. Intern can handle anything in the overnight." 

"So you're getting your practice in on me." 

"I work on the dead, not the living. You're not allowed to qualify for a good, long time." 

"I'll do my best." 

"See that you do." She leaned her hip against the side of his bed. "You're one of mine now, kitten. Nothing you can do about that." A gentle chuck to his chin, and she pursed her lips. "Could use a shave, though." 

Duke's eyes prickled again, his throat locking down. He was much too wiped out to hold anything back right now, so he waited it out instead, letting his breath shake and the tears fall. Gloria didn't say a word about it, just picked up a box of tissues and waited for him to finish. Both his arms were swathed in bandages, so she leaned in to dry his cheeks herself when he'd calmed again, letting out a little hum of approval. 

"What's with that?" he asked, when he was sure his voice would behave. She raised her eyebrows in a question and he sighed. "You, and crying." 

"I married into the Harker family," she said, as though that would explain it. Duke shook his head and waited. "The Harker trouble is, if they let themselves cry, people drop dead." 

". . . Fuck." 

"Yep." Gloria tossed the used tissues and set the box down on the side table. "So it pisses me right off when I see those who _can_ don't." 

Duke lifted his hand as high as he could — which wasn't very — and tugged on her sleeve. She turned back towards him. 

"I'm sorry," he said. 

She nodded. "I know." She took his hand, laying it gently but firmly back on the bed, and patted his arm again. "You didn't know any better. Just don't be doing it again."

*

Jennifer and Dave both spent a night in the hospital themselves, treated for exhaustion and minor burns. The theory among those in the know was that it was Duke's blood itself that heated up when exposed to aether, so anywhere it had touched their skin was left red and blistered. For Jennifer, that was along her lower back, where her shirt had ridden up in the struggle. For Dave, it was the back of his neck. They found other bruises on him though, all along his torso. Remnants, he said, of his time in the Void.

Duke would have thought Dave's 'time in the Void' had lasted about three seconds, but, well. It turned out _everyone_ who'd been up on the bluff that day was missing at least an hour's worth of memories. He supposed he couldn't really hold it against the guy for getting ridden around town like pony. Even if that pony ride _had_ included goading or blackmailing or otherwise forcing Duke to kill Kirk Bowers. 

At least the oxygen sucking trouble was gone now. Melted down and recycled and, according to Audrey, gathered into one of three five gallon buckets now locked away in a secret location somewhere in town. 

Duke looked down at his right arm as Audrey talked, catching him up on all the news around town. The burns didn't extend too far past his elbows on either arm, but on the right they went _deep_ , especially around the knife wound itself. The cauterization had kept him from bleeding out, which was great, but the scarring promised to be nasty, inside and out. Even accounting for his general weakness all over, he could barely move his right hand, and regular bouts of pins-and-needles were driving him nuts. The doctors made noises about nerve damage and circulation problems, but couldn't tell him for sure if it would get better. 

Duke wondered if his future self would still think that this timeline was better than the original. Of course, though he might be permanently down one hand, he was at least still alive. 

"Duke?" Dwight asked. "Hey." 

Duke blinked his way out of his reverie and tried to sit up a little higher. "What?"

"You want us to clear out, man?" He gestured between himself, Audrey, and Nathan. "You still look like shit." 

Duke shrugged, eyes seeking out the clock, the way they always did now whenever he caught himself zoning out. 3:22 pm. Sunday. He hadn't lost any time. "No. I'm good. What were we talking about?" 

"William. There's still no sign." 

"Right. Yeah." Duke could lift his hands to his face again — the left one, anyway — and he rubbed it over his mouth. "He had another minion. Other than Heavy. Maybe someone's seen him?" 

"Could get Vince in here," Nathan said. "Get a sketch. You're the only one we know who's seen him." 

Duke didn't much want to deal with Vince right now — _"Name two celebrities he looked like." "Splinter from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Dory from Finding Nemo"_ — but he nodded anyway. "Sure. Worth a shot." 

Nathan nodded back, and the conversation went on around Duke again for awhile. 

It was odd; he'd spent last weekend refusing to let himself hope for people to come and find him, make sure he was okay. Now they were all here, and all he wanted was to be alone. Not forever. Just — for a little while. 

He could tell them that, and they would leave him be, he knew. They'd also sit right outside, watching his room and worrying. So he didn't. 

"There's something I still don't get," Dwight said, looking between Nathan and Duke. "How did you two know that Audrey was just pretending to be Mara?" 

"I wasn't," Audrey said, sounding a little frustrated. "I _am_ Mara. I'd never be able to work the aether like I can if I wasn't." 

"Right, alright." Dwight waved his hand. "But you're not — _Mara_ Mara. Evil Mara. You're Audrey." 

"Yes," Audrey said. Beside her, Nathan nodded. He still seemed too calm to Duke. Nathan was meant to be a powder keg behind his stony facade. This Nathan was almost . . . zen. 

It was creepy. 

"She's both," Nathan said. "She's everyone." 

"All-new recipe Audrey Parker," Duke said, careful to keep his voice light. Audrey flashed him a smile, and even Nathan looked faintly amused. 

"Okay." Dwight didn't sound like he got it. " _How?_ " 

Audrey shrugged, still looking at Duke. "Because I was already a little bit Lexie. You all came and got me before she was fully formed. So when William gave me the aether and I started to remember Mara, I was already used to being more than one person at once." She scowled suddenly, expression pure Mara. "It wasn't — it _isn't_ — easy. This was _my_ body, and now —" 

She was close enough, leaning against the safety rail on the edge of Duke's bed, that he was able to rest his hand on her arm. Nathan took her opposite hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. Mara wrinkled her nose and glared into the middle distance a moment longer, then relaxed. 

"I can share," she grumbled. She looked from Nathan to Duke and gave her version of Audrey's smile. 

Dwight looked between the three of them and shook his head. "Yeah, I kind of wish I hadn't asked." 

Duke let his hand drop back into his lap, the effort of keeping it raised, even resting on Audrey's arm, making him ache. His fever was down to a 'dull roar' according to Gloria, but apparently the trouble rendering furnace had to stay stoked, and his temperature refused to drop below 99 degrees. "I have a question," he said, and suddenly had all three of them looking at him intently. He was too tired to squirm under the attention. "What did you do to Nathan in the police station?" 

Nathan smiled, a little quirk of his lips. "Walter Donovan. He was on the trouble list." 

Duke nodded. "Yeah?" 

"Listening trouble. Could hear everything anyone in town was saying about him." 

Duke shuddered. Useful, potentially, but — yeah. He could see where that'd be a hell of a curse, too. 

"Croatoan had it," Audrey said. They all went quiet for a moment. If Croatoan _had_ it, he quite possibly still did, wherever he was. Hopefully, the trouble couldn't reach back to Haven from the Void. 

Hopefully the Void was where Croatoan was. 

"So you couldn't talk openly," Dwight said finally. Audrey nodded. 

"Duke's immune to aether now —" 

"To _my_ aether," Duke said. 

"All of it," Nathan countered. "You just cook the rest." 

Duke gestured as best he could to the bandages on his arms. "That's not an _immunity_." 

" _Guys._ " Dwight held up his hands. Audrey snorted. 

"Duke's immune. Ish," she said. "But Nathan had some aether on his hand. Some of Duke's super-aether, meaning if I used it to give him something, he could use it with me, too. So. . . ."

"She opened a link," Nathan finished. "Not full thoughts or anything. Impressions." 

"So he'd know it was me." 

"And I'd convince Duke." 

"And then Duke convinced you." 

"And —" 

"I have a headache," Duke said, pressing his hand to the bridge of his nose. "We get it. You are now _even more_ That Couple." 

Nathan and Audrey shot him identical frowns. 

"Well, I'm just glad it worked," Dwight said, clapping his hands on his thighs and standing. "And I can get back to finding the trouble that saves Lizzie." He pointed between Duke and Audrey. "I don't suppose . . . the list?" 

Duke shook his head, letting his hand drop to the bed again. "Sorry man. No resurrection troubles." 

"Kyle's gravedigger trouble'd be melted now, too," Nathan said. 

"Yes, Nathan. Thank you so much for that reminder." Duke shook his head. "All the troubles my family and I 'cured' are now actually gone. So hey. At least there's that." 

"Is, uh." Dwight jerked his thumb over his shoulder. "Is Jennifer's?" 

"No idea," Nathan said. "Only way to check is to look for a door —" 

"Or make me blow chunks," Duke finished. "No thank you. I'm trying this whole new 'not puking' diet out for awhile." 

"Yeah?" Dwight smirked. "I hear that's just a fad. It'll blow over." 

Duke was too wiped to even flick him off right now. "You're hilarious. Please leave now." 

Dwight laughed and headed out the door. And nearly ran over a petite brunette wearing a suit sharp enough to cut steel. 

"Excuse me," she said. Audrey and Nathan both went stiff. "Is this Duke Crocker's room?" 

Duke's stomach sank. "No," he tried. 

The brunette gave him a look as sharp as her suit. "Mr. Crocker. I'm Charlotte Cross with the Centers for Disease Control." 

Duke turned a wild look on Nathan, who was on his feet, shaking his head.

"You're not," he said, then to Duke: "I _didn't._ " 

Audrey was shaking, her expression astonished and furious. "Mom?!" 

Duke tried to sink through his pillow — and preferably the bed and the floor, thanks — as everyone started talking at once. Maybe he really would just go to sea. 

It'd be a hell of a lot more restful than staying here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's done, wooo! Never fear, dear readers, there will be a third part to this series. I've even made it through about the first chapter in first draft form! It'll probably be a little while before I'm ready to post anything of it, though. I'm still working out the overall shape of the damn thing. . . .


End file.
